Innocence
by PhoenixFaltered
Summary: Ch 3, finally. It's not as long as I'd like, but this story is just kicking my butt. I can't seem to finish it. Thanks to everyone for being so patient, and I'll try to have another chapter up in the next couple of weeks.
1. Chapter 1

..When Acting Ensign Crusher stepped smartly off of a turbolift onto deck fourteen, he was distracted and late for his four hour shift in Engineering that Geordi had scheduled as a part of his pre-academy training. He held his arms close to his sides; hands clutched around three data padds that he had been unable to drop off in his new quarters, and glanced around the corridor for anyone he was likely to run into while his long legs propelled him toward his destination.

His mother had left the Enterpriser two weeks before, to take an elite post at Starfleet Medical, and he was still adjusting to life without constant supervision. His mother had not been an overbearing presence, but she had been constantly _there_, and even though he was sixteen years old and almost grown he felt uneasy and floundered without her steady guidance. He had thus far successfully hid that fact from the officers in charge of his care and education.

Ensign Crusher rounded a corner, and was slightly chagrined to see Commander William Riker and Counselor Troi walking toward the lift that he had just exited. He didn't have time to stop and say hello, and he really didn't want them to know that he was late. Riker spotted him, though, and gave one of his face-splitting grins. "Hello, Mr. Crusher."

Wes raised his head and smiled back "How are you, Commander?" It wasn't until then that Crusher spotted the man in a metallic grey shirt and black pants walking behind the two officers, engaged in muted conversation with Counselor Troi. Crusher was immediately relieved: The two officers were escorting a civilian guest. They would not have time to "show appropriate concern" and ask him about his life or his schoolwork.

Wes nodded to Counselor Troi and prepared to continue down the corridor when the stranger turned to face him. His startled brown eyes met solid black ones, like Betazoid eyes except for their amber pupils, eyes as deep as the tar pits that had swallowed dinosaurs on Wesley's home planet millions of years ago. Wesley Crusher's past crashed into his present, and the careful walls he had built around his most wounded memories crumbled.

It was like a nightmare, where everything seems normal, but you know there are monsters hidden behind the innocent faces of the people that you walk past. Wesley knew this man. He knew the face, pale and angular with full, flushed lips that matched the color in his pale cheeks. The man's pale blond hair was cropped short, like a bird of prey. It had been long, when they had met before. Wesley knew the eyes best of all, thick and liquid, eyes he would drown in if he didn't escape their pull, right now. His mother had been gone when he had met this man for the first time. She had been gone then, too.

Riker was speaking to him. The meaning of the older man's words couldn't penetrate the white noise rushing in his ears. Wes couldn't see the shocked and speculative look Troi gave both him and the stranger, before her face closed into a pleasant mask of neutrality.

"I'm sorry. I'm late for a shift in Engineering." Wesley's tone was blank, his voice a little too loud. He could barely hear himself. He put his head down and rushed past the group, walking as fast as he could without actually running, and didn't stop until he entered engineering. He spotted Geordi as soon as he entered the large room, with his back to Wesley and the door. Without thinking, Crusher made a beeline for the head in the left corner of the room, dodging people and consoles and equipment. He locked the door behind him and slid down the wall, crossing his arms over his knees, and shook.

Out in the corridor, Riker picked up the three data Padds that Wesley had dropped, then shared a look of confusion and concern with Troi before turning to their guest. "I'm sorry about that, Mr. Cullagh. Wesley's usually a very polite young man. I don't know why he wouldn't have wanted to catch up with one of his old instructors." Mr. Cullagh smoothed his sleeve, and smiled wanly. "Ah well, I suspect my boy was distracted, and didn't recognize me. It has been almost six years since I've seen him, after all. That equates to centuries in a young man's existence."

Riker smiled. "So, you met the Crushers on Tau Sigma IV?" The commander reached out his arm and subtly steered the man toward the turbolift, with Troi on the other side of him. In an unconscious move, they were surrounding him so that he could not escape if he fled. It was a meaningless gesture. The situation had not escalated to the point where physical restraint was needed, and there was little indication that it ever would.

"Yes, I taught him Vulcan Philosophy." Cullagh said. "As I recall, it wasn't his forte, but he nevertheless made quite an impression on me. He's a remarkable young man."

"Yes, he is." Counselor Troi interjected. "I'll speak to him about you: Perhaps that will jog his memory. In the meantime, would you like me to arrange for you and your protégé to be given a tour of the ship?"

Cullagh smiled politely as he turned toward her. "No thank you, Counselor. That isn't necessary. Mara and I will only be on board until tomorrow afternoon. I hear the refitting will be done by then, and the Enterprise will move on to better things. I would appreciate it if you would speak to Wesley for me, but please don't embarrass him on my behalf. I'm not the first teacher to be forgotten by my student."

Troi gave him a gracious smile as the trio reached the turbolift, and held the door open for their guest by touching a small panel by the door. "That's very understanding of you, Mr. Cullagh."

Cullagh stepped onto the lift. "Now, I think I will take my leave of you. I can find my own way back to my quarters, and I'm sure that you both have more important things to do."

"Not at all, sir." Riker replied. "But we'll leave you to your own devises for now. I'm sure that this situation with Wesley can be worked out." Riker stood at parade rest while the turbolift doors closed around their guest, and then turned to Troi. "What the hell was that all about?"

"I don't know," Troi answered, "But Wesley did recognize Cullagh, and there's more going on between those two than the professor let on."

Riker looked down at her with a tight smile, his eyes shining sardonically. "I may not be an empath, Deanna, but I'm not an idiot. The boy took off down that corridor like he'd seen a ghost. Can you be more specific about what you sensed from him?"

Troi's face smoothed itself into professional lines. "Meeting Cullagh was so traumatic for Wesley that it sent him into shock. The only thing I sensed from him was disassociation and panic. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that he was afraid of Cullagh. The man could have reminded him of a traumatic event that he hasn't dealt with. I can't be sure. As far as Cullagh is concerned…" Troi crossed her arms. "The man has an almost Vulcan mental discipline, but he was very excited to see Wesley, and his feelings toward him were…well, they can only be described as possessive. And he keeps referring to Wesley as his: My boy, my student."

Riker frowned. "That's rather ominous. It doesn't sound as if Mr. Cullagh is as beneficent toward Mr. Crusher as he claimed."

Deanna sighed. "Perhaps. But remember, Wesley is a sixteen year old boy who has just begun living on his own. He could be overreacting. Maybe he forgot to turn in an assignment six years ago, and is afraid that Mr. Cullagh has tracked him down to give him a failing grade: You know how much of a perfectionist Wesley is."

Riker laughed. "I don't think it's something that trivial, but you do have a point, and we don't have time to hold Mr. Crusher's hand right now. I need to get down to Engineering to supervise that Impulse engine refit, and you need to get started on the crew evaluations so that we can have them turned in by tomorrow."

Troi crossed her arms and nodded. "That's unfortunately true. Well, I'll stop by his quarters later to see if he wants to talk, but you know how close mouthed adolescent boys can be. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on Cullagh, but to be honest I didn't sense anything from him to make me think he was dangerous."  
Riker nodded. "Well, that settles it, then. I'll hand him back his padds, but I'll leave the counseling to you. See you later."

Troi smiled as Riker strode away from the lift, toward engineering. "Goodbye, Will." She signaled the lift, and headed back to her office.

Still huddled on the floor of the privy in Engineering, Wesley Crusher had finally stopped shaking. His hands were clinched so tightly around his knees that his fingers had gone numb. He slowly pried them apart, and realized his data Padds were missing. He didn't even remember dropping them.

Wes groaned, and dropped his head back down on his knees. There went three hours of research-he hadn't had the time to back his work up on the main computer. Wes laughed, weakly, at the thought that he could get upset by such a trivial concern as lost homework when Cullagh was here, when his universe had so suddenly shifted out of its normal alignment. It wasn't _right_ that Cullagh was on the Enterprise, in the same way that it wasn't right for matter and anti-matter to inhabit the same space without exploding.

Wes felt as though he were adrift in an unstable quantum filament, where doors left locked in the past opened into the present, and the future was a black chasm that sucked you around in a circle to places you thought you had left far behind.

He had left Cullagh behind, on a planet called Tau Delta IV, along with three weeks of terror and torture and the certainty of death at the end of it all. That certainty had been reprieved by his unexpected salvation at the hands of a man named Tarmok Shae, a miracle of sorts, but Wes did not think that the same miracle ever happened twice.

Wesley rubbed his slim fingered hands together in order to restore circulation. _How long have I been sitting here_? As if in answer to his unspoken question, his communicator beeped. "Commander La Forge to Acting Ensign Crusher." Geordi sounded irritated. Wesley's lips stretched into a manic grin as fey amusement filled him. How could Geordi expect him to be intimidated by the petty ire of a commanding officer at a time like this? He had escaped hell itself, six years ago, and hell had come here to claim him.

Wes reached up, and tapped his communicator. "Wesley here."

"Ensign Crusher, you were supposed to report to Engineering at 12:30. It is now 13:25. Where exactly are you?" Geordi's tone was incensed, strident. It almost made Wesley laugh. He couldn't completely keep the humor out of his voice when he answered. "I'm in the privy, sir. One moment, I'll join you."  
Wesley stood, slowly, and numbing pain shot through his legs as he straightened them. He stepped forward on limbs pierced with pins and needles to look into the mirror above the sink. A too pale face with dark eyes and flushed cheeks looked back at him. The color in his cheeks reminded him of Cullagh, and the grin on his face was replaced with a grimace. He didn't want to be connected to that monster in any way.

Wes took a deep breath and, before he could reconsider the impulse, exited the bathroom. He walked up to Geordi, who was standing beside the briefing table in front of the warp core.

"Geordi," he managed to get out, before La Forge turned and laid into him. "Do you consider your duty assignments to be irrelevant, Mr. Crusher? Because if you do, I'm sure your mother would be thrilled to have you with her at Starfleet Medical. Commander Riker and I, however, do not have time to baby-sit an irresponsible child."

Wes's face fell into a patented hangdog expression. It was a natural response, almost. Underneath the very real hurt that one of his mentors had leapt to conclusions about his intentions, there was a small, calculating voice inside his head that told him if he _acted_ as if nothing was wrong, nothing would be. It was in Cullagh's best interest to ignore him-perhaps Cullagh wasn't interested in him at all. He had probably come on board for some other purpose. The Enterprise _was_ the flag ship of the United Federation of Planets, after all. Wes was only her most junior officer.

"I'm sorry Geord…Commander." He said. "But I…well, I got caught up in class doing a science experiment on the accelerated decay of Tetreon particles in the presence of Hyperonic radiation, and I lost track of time. I know I'm very late, but it won't happen again. I promise." His voice wavered as though he were on the verge of tears. He was-but not because he as late for Engineering make work.

Geordi's expression softened, but before he had a chance to respond Riker walked up to them, holding Wesley's three data Padds. Wesley breathed a minute sigh of relief even as his stomach clenched in anticipation of Riker's demand for an explanation of his earlier behavior.

Riker held the Padds out. "You dropped these in the corridor, Mr. Crusher. You should have more care with ship equipment."

"I know sir, I'm sorry sir. I was in a hurry because I was late." Riker's lips fell into a disapproving frown. "If you managed your time better, Ensign, you wouldn't be late."

"Yes sir, "Wesley replied, defeated, and Geordi spoke up again. "Well, since you are late there's no use working on the new sensor array today. I'm turning you over to Commander Riker, to help with the engine refit. Try to pay attention, Ensign, so that we can complete the task on schedule." Geordi strode away from the table, leaving Wesley alone with the man who had seen his reaction to Cullagh.

Before he could get anxious, Riker clasped a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Wesley, we'll see if we can't get done a little early today. I'm meeting the counselor to start crew evaluations tonight. Come to think of it, we were planning on giving you a promotion: How does Acting Captain sound?" Wesley grinned as he walked with the taller man over to the diagnostic consoles that were linked to the Impulse engines. "I think you had better make Captain Picard an Acting Admiral first, sir."

In her office, Deanna Troi had settled in with a cup of coffee and a pile of data Padds. Evaluations were the part of her job that she cared for the least, and the light, open atmosphere of her office helped her and her patients to dive into issues they didn't particularly care for. As an added bonus, the fact that it was a business environment for her kept her mind from wondering.

After two hours she rose and stretched, and remembered that she had promised Will that she would look into Cullagh. Her empathic senses had not given any clear indications about the man, but something about him unsettled her. After quickly checking his location and finding him still in his quarters along with his young protégé, she asked the computer to supply biographical information.

Here she got a surprise. There was no information on the man earlier than fifteen years prior, when he had taken up residence on Tau Delta IV, a bucolic world that was eighty percent rain forest. The planet was considered Federation territory, but only just. The primary political interests on Tau Delta IV were controlled by the SanDai, whose empire stretched close to Romulen space. The SanDai Empire was a loose conglomeration of planets and races born out of financial opportunities that rested in an emphasis on neutrality between their two more powerful neighbors.

Cullagh did not have a listed date of birth and his home world was unknown. The computer could not even identify his species, but Deanna could tell through her empathic senses and the sight of the man's strange eyes that he wasn't human, at least not completely.

Cullagh had gotten on board the ship as soon as it had docked at Starbase 423, for a two day engine refit and hull integrity tests. He had received permission to enter the base strictly because he had a visitors pass to board the Enterprise, and he had gotten that pass through his identification as a citizen in good standing at Tau Delta IV. He did teach Vulcan philosophy, but not at an academy or a school. He was a private tutor.

The records that Cullagh kept were sketchy, but they did not list Wesley as a pupil. Deanna did determine that Wesley and Cullagh had been on Tau Delta IV at the same time, but Wesley had been left in the care of a Federation Embassy for almost two months while his mother had performed classified and, it could be assumed, dangerous work for Starfleet medical. Otherwise she would have kept her son with her. Wesley had arrived via Starfleet transport, and left the same way. Dr. Crusher had never been on Tau Delta IV.

Troi leaned back onto her lavender sofa, and closed her eyes while she thought out the situation. She had only known Beverly Crusher for a year, but it seemed unlikely that she would allow her son to be taught a subject he didn't particularly care for by a private tutor she herself had never met and who, as far as Deanna could ascertain, was not a Federation citizen. Something about this didn't add up. She reached up and tapped her combadge. "Troi to Comander Riker."

Wesley put the finishing touches on the day's task for the refit while Riker stepped away to have a muted conversation with Counselor Troi. The duty shift had flown by, but Wes was not reassured. Riker hadn't even mentioned the incident in the corridor, and that didn't bode well. It had been too unusual a circumstance for Riker to dismiss it, so his silence seemed to indicate that he was taking it seriously. That would never do. Wes had to find a way to diffuse the situation.

The boy's earlier equanimity had fled. He had grown increasingly nervous over the last three hours, barely able to keep still. His fingers drummed on any surface they came into contact with, much to Crusher's chagrin and the rest of the engineering team's annoyance. His skin hummed, like it was stretched too tight over his compact frame, and he had the overwhelming feeling that he should be somewhere else.

He managed to ignore it for the first hour, but realization finally struck while he was lying on his back under an open hatch with a hydrospanner, trying to recalibrate the Impulse energy flow. Cullagh was calling him.

He didn't have to go. The feeling would get so strong that he would have to huddle in a ball and gnaw on his own flesh, but he didn't have to go. It was the calculating voice that told him this, the steady hum under everything else that noticed all things, considered all circumstances, and then made unexpected connections. Wes couldn't remember when he had first heard the voice, but it had been there with him on Tau Delta IV. It was in good part the reason he had survived Cullagh, and it was also the reason for his success in science and engineering. He would have liked to call it his intelligence, but it was more focused than that. He called it the watcher. The name seemed to fit.

And now the watcher was reminding him that Cullagh could be resisted, if Wesley were willing to pay the price for that resistance. It had been unrealistic to hope that Cullagh would ignore him. No matter the reason the man had come on board, he had seen Wesley, and did not intend to let the opportunity pass.

Wes jumped when Riker unexpectedly placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Crusher, do you have any other commitments after this shift?"

"No sir, just some homework to do," Wes replied. Riker kept his hand on the boy's shoulder as they spoke, and the gesture made Wes feel oddly secure. "Well, then why don't you come on down with me to Counselor Troi's office for a little while? There's something we need to discuss with you."

"Did I do something wrong, sir?" Wes asked, stalling for time. He needed to give the impression that he did not remember Cullagh.

"Not at all, Ensign. Just…come with me. Counselor Troi will explain everything in her office."

The walk seemed endless, a savage trek over hostile terrain where the angles were too sharp, the lights too bright. Wesley felt like he was about to burst out of his skin. He rubbed his arms and walked too fast, then walked too slow. Riker was staring at him. "Are you all right, Wesley?" "I'm fine." He retorted sharply, and then glanced apologetically at Riker. "Sir."

Riker simply glanced away, and continued walking. The two reached Troi's office, finally, and Wesley breathed a sigh of relief. Riker glanced at him again, a distant and professional expression on his face. Riker placed his hand on the call panel, and the doors parted with Deanna on the other side. She smiled broadly when she saw them. "Come on in and have a seat, you two." The two men entered the office. Riker sat down close to the middle of the long lavender sofa, and Wesley chose the left hand side. Wes felt gangly and unhinged and he very much wanted to pace, but he knew that would be a bad idea.

He wondered if they had chosen their seats intentionally. Troi's position in the straight backed chair in front of him gave her control over the session, and Riker on the couch with him gave the impression that the Commander was his ally. Troi obviously intended to use friendliness to put him off guard. She settled into her chair, and smiled as if nothing were amiss. "Would either of you care for something to drink? I know slaving around the engine room while these refits are being done can't be much fun." She wrinkled her nose at the thought, in what Wesley found to be a cute and unexpectedly erotic gesture. He crossed his legs.

"No thanks," Riker and Crusher both said, in chorus. Wesley began rubbing his arms again. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. _Don't you dare let down your guard_, the watcher said._ They're trying to waylay you like an innocent child…don't be one_. Troi's brow furrowed in concern. "Wes, you seem really anxious. Does it have something to do with meeting Mr. Cullagh? I understand that he was your tutor, on Tau Delta IV while your mother was doing research for Starfleet."

Wesley was expecting some light conversation, maybe an innocent seeming segue. Having Troi drop Cullagh's name unexpectedly like that made him flounder. "Well...umm…Who's…Well, not really, counselor." That was smooth. There was no way to pretend he didn't remember Cullagh now.

Wes was put off by the astounding gall of the man, more then anything else. Coming here, using his own name, and openly seeking Wesley out? The Orion Syndicate would have strung him up for any one of those things. All three together ensured a slow death, if they ever found out about it. The watcher noted coldly that this gave them some leverage.

Troi's liquid black eyes gazed at him, dispassionately. They reminded him suddenly of Cullagh, and Wes wanted to flee the room. Cullagh chose that moment to increase the strength of his psychic call. Wes jumped up, and started pacing behind the couch. "Wesley." Troi's voice was composed. He turned toward her and Riker. Riker's face was marked with concern and confusion. "Wes," Riker said softly, "Why don't you tell us what's bothering you? Maybe we can help."

Wes had expected confusion, confrontation and humiliating chastisement. He hadn't expected them to reach out like this. For a brief instant he wanted to confide in them, but he dismissed the impulse. The secrets he held were too dark, and too deadly to be shared. And not all of them were his to tell.

Wes walked back around, and sat gingerly on the sofa. "Counselor, Commander…I knew Cullagh when I was eleven. Yes, he was my teacher. My mother doesn't know about him. I…got into trouble on Tau Sigma IV, because I wasn't paying attention, and someone got hurt. I really don't want to talk to Mr. Cullagh because he reminds me of that. If you'll just tell him for me, I'm sure he'll understand."

He had no idea where the speech had come from, but it was beautiful. It was simple, sincere, and every word the truth. Just not the whole truth. Let them draw their own conclusions.

Troi's face relaxed. "All right, Wesley. I think more is going on than what you're willing to share, but you're old enough to make your own decisions. I'm always available if you want to discuss this further. I think Mr. Cullagh is leaving tomorrow afternoon, so that situation will resolve itself. Are you sure you don't want to be more specific about what happened?" Wesley hung his head. "Not at this time, Counselor."

"Well, go on back to your quarters and get some rest. In situations like this, I always prescribe Deanna Troi's Cure for all Ails: A chocolate sundae." Riker laughed, and Wes smiled. He was almost free. "I think I'll go with a banana split. Does that mark me as an inferior being, Counselor?"

Troi's eyes twinkled. "No, it just marks you as an odd one. Now move along. Commander Riker and I have crew evaluations to do." Wesley rose, and walked toward the door. "Just let me see the Captain's face when you promote him, Commander." He called out, and scampered through the door before either one of them could respond.

As the doors swished shut, Riker and Troi turned to one another. "All right," Riker said, "I'm getting annoyed. Does he really think we're going to fall for that? And why did you let him leave without even trying to get the truth out of him?"

Troi crossed her arms. "Who is the psychologist here, Commander? If we had tried to push him now, he would likely have never been willing to come forward. And right now, he's the only reliable source of information we have. Mr. Cullagh doesn't have a criminal record, so we can't justify an in depth investigation, but my instincts tell me that more is at stake here than just his past interactions with our Mr. Crusher."

Riker nodded in acquiescence. "You're right. A confrontational approach probably isn't the best one to use. I just wish I knew what was going on." He pursed his lips in frustration.

Troi nodded. "I think Mr. Crusher told us the truth, as far as it goes, but he was holding quite a bit back. He either fears recrimination if he reveals information about Cullagh, or he's afraid it might hurt someone else. One thing's for sure: He doesn't like the man. When I mentioned Cullagh's name, there was a spike of fear from him, but he also reacted with anger and derision. He views Cullagh as an enemy, and one who has made a mistake. Any other information will come out on his time, and I don't think that Wesley would hide something from us if he felt it was critical or dangerous."

Riker smiled ironically. "He's sixteen, Deanna. I'll admit that he's a very responsible boy, but he's sixteen nonetheless. He could be overreacting, but he could also be holding back serious and vital information. We need to get the whole story out of him, and soon. I don't know how dangerous the man is, but I don't like Cullagh. He's too smooth for my tastes."

Troi nodded. "You're right. We'll let Wesley sleep on it, and talk to him again tomorrow. In the meantime we'll continue to have security monitor Cullagh, but the man has made no move that indicates a threat to the ship or anyone on board. He's barely left his quarters."

Riker seemed mollified. "In the meantime, we have to do crew evaluations and finish this refit. And maybe _I'm_ the one who's overreacting. This is Wesley Crusher, after all. As long as he doesn't blow the ship up doing some sort of science experiment, everything should be fine."

Wesley Crusher walked steadily down the corridor with his head up and his long arms swinging slightly. He nodded to everyone he passed. He was a picture of friendly competence. Inside, he felt like screaming. Every atom in his body wanted to turn, go _that way_, toward Cullagh's quarters on deck 12. He knew the deck, even though no one had told him. He could have found the room without being told, either. He hadn't given in, and he wouldn't give in. It wouldn't get much worse than this. Cullagh couldn't actually _compel_ him unless…unless he got his hands on him to reset his control, and that would require time and privacy. Wesley was determined to give him neither.

One thing was sure: He couldn't go back to his quarters. If Cullagh came there, there would be no witnesses if he attacked. Without really thinking about it, Wesley headed back toward Engineering. Maybe if he worked all night on the refit, Geordi would be in a more forgiving mood tomorrow. He entered engineering, and rounded the corner toward the warp core. Geordi was sanding there, relaxed and smiling, talking to Cullagh.

Wesley lost his breath as his lungs compressed in icy terror and a very real sense of betrayal. He knew his response was irrational, but how _could_ Geordi be talking to this monster as if he were a long lost friend when the Lieutenant Commander had been so eager to blast Wesley just for being late for a duty shift?

Geordi turned and spotted him before he could flee. "Wes!" The stocky engineer waved him over. He walked forward, slowly. There was no way out. "I've been talking to Mr. Cullagh here. I understand he's an old instructor of yours?" Wes didn't look into Cullagh's face. He had no idea what he would do if he did. Probably run away but…there was a possibility that his reaction would be much worse.

"Yeah…I knew him a few years ago." Wes kept his tone noncommittal. Cullagh couldn't read his mind, not exactly, and he didn't want to give his unease away. "You should have told me you were catching up with him earlier, Wes. I wouldn't have been so hard on you about being late. I know how it is, to run into people you haven't seen in a long time. Last time I was on earth, I ran into an old academy professor and…" Geordi went on, blathering, and Wes slowly, inescapably, turned to meet Cullagh's gaze. _I should have known he was here_ Wes thought. _That_ was why he had felt so relieved to be going toward engineering.

Cullagh was smiling slightly. His dark eyes were pools of thinly disguised greed, and triumph. _He thinks he's already won_, the watcher said, and Wes almost smiled. Good. The more overconfident Cullagh was, the easier this confrontation would be.

Geordi finally tapered off. "Anyway, you two don't want to hear about that, and I have more work to do. Why don't you take Mr. Cullagh to Ten-Forward, Wes? You two can catch up there." Before either one could reply Geordi, monofocused as usual, had stalked away toward the impulse engines leaving Wesley alone to face the man he had never wanted to see again in this lifetime.

Cullagh's smile widened. "You took your own sweet time coming, my boy." Wesley regarded him, stone faced. "I'm not your boy." He said the words clearly, distinctly, as though he was biting into ripe fruit. In an inconsistent flicker of memory he remembered eating spiced Allma melon on Tau Delta IV, the sweet and pulpy fruit chilling his throat as it slid down. He remembered huddling in a frigid, dark cell with no windows, tark slugs crawling along his nude flesh, happy to be there, because Cullagh had said to wait here and doing what Cullagh wanted him to do was the best thing in the world…

Cullagh laughed, deep and smooth and low, startling Wes out of his reverie. "You always were impudent. Come, boy. Let's walk to some place more private." He placed his hand on Wes's right arm just above the elbow in what looked like a friendly gesture. No one could see that the fingers were clinched tight enough to bruise.

Cullagh steered him toward the door, setting Wes adrift in a sea of ambivalence. He wanted to acquiesce, to bow down before Cullagh and do whatever the man wanted him to do. He wanted to rip the arm that held him out of its socket in a smooth wet motion, and watch blood pool on the grey metallic floor as Cullagh bled to death.

Wes almost went with the latter, but the watcher played for time. He placed his hand over Cullagh's and lifted the thumb, subtly breaking the man's grip. Cullagh's hand fell away as Wes turned toward him. "All right" Crusher said his voice in perfect control. "Let's go down to Ten-Forward. No one will pay attention there. I won't go anywhere alone with you, and you'll get more attention than you want if you try to force me to." Cullagh's eyes darkened with a dangerous anger, but he nodded.

The two walked out of Engineering and down the corridor together. Wes didn't remember much about the walk to Ten Forward, only that he was surprised that everything looked so normal. They entered the subdued lighting of the bar, and Wes steered Cullagh toward a table in back, by the stargazer window. He did it to take control of the situation more than anything else. The child in him was still huddling in fear at the threat Cullagh represented, but the watcher was pursuing a plan of its own.

The waiter came by to take there order. Wes requested a glass of water, and Cullagh ordered a fizzing citrus drink that Wesley had preferred on Tau Delta IV. _He's sadly mistaken if he thinks he can rattle you with a few pointed reminders_, the watcher whispered.

Wes sipped the water he had ordered after a friendly blond server brought their drinks. It seemed too cold and harsh to drink, so he sat it down again. He allowed his eyes to meet Cullagh's predatory gaze. "What do you want?" he asked. Cullagh's lips curled up into a slow and lazy grin. "Why I want you, of course. You do belong to me." Cullagh's expression hardened. "And I never let go of anything that belongs to me."

There was danger in his tone, and a possessive lust that had nothing to do with anything as wholesome as sex. Wes leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I never belonged to you, Cullagh." The man's expression went blank, dangerous, and the feeling that Wesley was going to burst out of his skin returned. Wes began to perspire. "What do you think that's going to accomplish, old man? I'm sitting right in front of you. I didn't come when you called before, and I won't do anything you want now."

Cullagh smiled again. "But you did come. You showed up in Engineering, right where I knew you would be." A dark amusement shone in Wesley's eyes. "I didn't come to you. You had to seek me out, and you know it."

_This is getting us nowhere_, the watcher murmured. _ We need more information_. "So, Cullagh" Wesley said, changing tactics, "How's the Syndicate treating you these days?" If Cullagh could drop little hints, so could he. Cullagh needed to remember that Wesley knew more than it was entirely safe for him to know about Cullagh's dealings with the Orion Syndicate. If the man's current actions revealed anything, it was that he was out of favor with them. They preferred subtlety, and this move of Cullagh's was anything but subtle.

Cullagh's expression closed down, and he gave Wes a speculative look. _I do believe he's started to take us seriously_ the watcher said. Then Cullagh regained control over his features, and his face softened. "I know it's been hard for you without me, my boy." He said softly. The words strummed against Wesley's conditioning, dimmed though it was due to the six year absence of reinforcement. Cullagh placed his hand over Wesley's, and the warm weight of it seemed to choke off the air supply to the young man's lungs.

_Don't let him do this_; the watcher said._ You know you can fight it off. He can't control you unless he bleeds you, it's your hand, and you can move it away. Don't think about it dammit, just do it, do it NOW!_ Wesley slowly moved his hand out from under Cullagh's. The man blinked, surprised by this show of resistance. The starlight from the window illuminated the older man's face, and Wesley's eyes burned almost as black as Cullagh's when he spoke softly into the silence. "Don't you dare touch me. Not ever."

A shadow drifted over to them, but Wesley didn't look up. He couldn't chance loosing his advantage, and Cullagh's mental call was strengthening. He didn't _think_ Cullagh could compel him, but he wasn't entirely sure. _I'm sure_ the watcher whispered.

"Ah, Mara, my dear, how kind of you to join us." Cullagh spoke without looking up. Wesley chanced a glance toward the person standing beside there table, and that glance froze any hope he had of resistance. She was thirteen years old, maybe fourteen. She had full lips, sunken blue eyes and a pale face. Her hair was blond, stringy and coarse. She wasn't starving, not yet, but her cheekbones were sharply defined. Her eyes were slightly unfocused, as if she were looking at something no one else could see. It was another moment of rushing discontinuity for Wesley. She was himself, six years ago, and he would be like her, again. There was no hope of escape.

Wesley looked into her eyes as she stood beside the table, as he had stood in a sun drenched tropical plaza six years before, hollow eyed and starving and covered in seeping wounds that oozed blood and viscous fluid through the fabric of his light colored shirt. She looked down at him, and he looked up at a man with kind eyes and a Romulan face. He spoke to her, the same words that the Romulan had spoken to him. "Mara," Wes said softly, "Do you know where you are?" The Romulan police officer had called him son, my son. Mara looked at Wesley in confusion, and gave the same answer he had given his savior, six years ago. "I'm with Cullagh. I'm where I'm supposed to be."

Wesley felt the grasp of gravity intensify. His own weight pulled him down toward his seat like the rush of the ocean pulls grains of sand away from the shoreline. Why had it never occurred to him before that Cullagh would take someone else? He couldn't leave Mara like this.

Cullagh began drumming his fingers on the table. "It's a fair trade, my boy." He said. "I'll exchange Mara for you. I'll leave her here, and you get on a shuttle with me tonight." Wesley's vision pinned, focused to the point that all he could see was Cullagh's face. If Mara, whoever she was, had actually heard Cullagh's words she would have been hysterical at the thought of being left, but she heard only what Cullagh wanted her to hear. Wes's mind churned furiously, trying to come up with options. There was no going to Riker or Troi or anyone else. He'd made the decision to keep someone else's secrets, back on Tau Delta IV, and he couldn't reveal them now. He had kept his part of the bargain, but the past had come to claim him nonetheless.

"Can I get you another chair?" The words were so out of place with the situation that Wesley did not realize at first that neither Cullagh nor Mara had spoken them. Guinan stood beside the table, solid and real and normal, as commonplace as nothing had been since he had stepped off of a turbolift and come face to face with his own personal nightmare.

Cullagh looked up at the bartender as if surprised to see her. Mara didn't respond at all. "We're fine, Guinan." Wesley said, and smiled disarmingly for her benefit. Guinan didn't smile back. "Well, I'll be at the bar if you need anything." Then she turned around and walked away. She hadn't even spoken to Cullagh, or Mara. It was unexpected and, for some reason as Wesley watched the volumous robes swirl around her retreating form the connections his mind had been trying to form coalesced.

There was no separation between the Enterprise and Tau delta IV. It was only a planet in space, spinning around a sun, same as all the other planets he had visited. Reality snapped into place with a vengeance, and the events that he had locked behind their own special door in his mind took their synchronic space in his life. It had all really happened, and he was really sitting here with the man who had tortured and intended to kill him, slowly and painfully for the appeasement of his own bestial appetites.

Wes wasn't trapped. He was older, smarter, and stronger than he had been six years ago, bereft of guidance on a world where death masqueraded as delight. He could win. And he could take this girl with him.

Cullagh missed the critical moment that the icy fear in Wesley's bloodstream shifted into a fine tuned and delicate rage. Wesley swore, glancing up at Mara, that it would be this man's last mistake.

"I have some things to take care of, first." Wes said abruptly. "Go back to your quarters, and take her with you. I'll come by tomorrow afternoon."

Cullagh's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You wouldn't be trying to play me, would you boy?" He wasn't nearly suspicious enough. The man was insane. He actually thought he had that much power over Wesley, actually thought he could just waltz in here and take him. Wes let his eyes drop. "What choice do I have, Cullagh. You…you just give me tonight, all right?"

"I'll give you tonight. But I'm going to monitor your every move. You as much as think about telling anyone, I'll know. And I'll kill Mara, and come after you."

Wes almost laughed, before he caught himself. Cullagh either thought he was still in thrall and not just sensitive to a summons, or he thought that he was so fragile that he could be bluffed into submission. Cullagh never could read minds, only put what he wanted into them. He had no way of knowing what either Wesley or Mara was thinking. This was going to be easier than Wes had thought.

Wesley hung his head while Cullagh and Mara exited Ten-Forward. His cocky assurance disserted him after the doors closed behind them. He slumped down on the table, shivering. He had some idea how he was going to get out of this, but he had about twelve hours to come up with a specific plan. There was no way of helping Mara without telling someone in authority _something_. That meant he needed to be in Picard's office tomorrow at 06:00, but what and how much to tell the Captain was still a mystery to him.

It had to be Picard, though. Mara was in direct danger, and there wasn't time to use Riker as a go between. Both the Captain and the first officer had the authority to open a criminal investigation, but Picard was the only one who had the authority to take the ship to Tau Delta IV. Wes had a sinking suspicion that such a trip would be necessary.

His restless mind calculated the time it would take to reach Tau Delta at various warp speeds while he stared out at the indifferent stars. He didn't notice that Guinan had sat down in the chair that Cullagh had vacated for some time. She didn't speak, and he didn't answer her silent question. They sat together through the night watch, as the ship slowly orbited Station 421. By 5:15 the next day Wesley knew what he was going to do.

He rose and walked behind the bar, ordering a double shot latte for himself. When he turned around to leave Ten-Forward, Guinan had disappeared. He hadn't even heard the doors open. Sometimes, Wes wondered if Guinan could either teleport herself, or had rigged the ship's transporter system to move her from place to place so that she could seem more mysterious.

Wes walked out of the bar and sipped his coffee as he walked slowly toward the main bridge. He made the trip take over half an hour. He really wasn't in a hurry to reach the Captain. He placed his mug in a reclamation unit hidden in the bulkhead outside of the turbolift that would take him to the bridge, and stood there while the final minutes wound down. Finally, his communicator beeped, telling him that it was 06:00 hours.

He tapped his combadge. "Acting Ensign Crusher to Captain Picard." Picard answered almost immediately, his tone sharp and distracted. "Picard here. What can I do for you, Wesley?" _Keep it simple_, the watcher cautioned._ Be controlled and straightforward. You have to sound like a grownup_. "Captain, I became aware yesterday of a situation on board that I think you should know about. It involves danger to at least one individual and criminal activity. If you don't mind, I'd like to come up to the bridge and talk to you about it."

Picard's tone of voice changed to one of alarm and concern. "Come on up, Ensign. I'll see you immediately."

"I'm on my way now, Captain. And if I may, could I request that Counselor Troi, Commander Riker, and Dr. Pulaski be present as well?" "All right, Wesley, I'll summon them. And if this involves criminal activity on the ship, I suppose Mr. Worf should be there, as well."

Wesley winced, but didn't let his discomfort creep into his voice. "If you think that's best, Captain. Crusher out." He summoned the turbolift. Riker and Troi were on it as the doors opened. Wes stepped inside and stood with his back to them, not even saying hello. He didn't trust himself to speak. He didn't see the looks that they gave each other behind his back, but he was relieved that they asked no questions.

When they reached the Bridge, Picard led them into the conference room and gestured for Wesley to sit at the head of the table. Worf was already there, standing with his arms crossed by the view window. Picard sat on Wesley's right side, and Troi sat on his left. Riker sat beside her, and Worf came over to take position at the other end of the table. Wesley could have done without having to stare down a Klingon, but didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Wes wanted to say that he was waiting for Pulaski, and that he didn't want to have to explain everything twice, but nerves clinched his throat. He exhaled, and his chest was so tight that it felt like the air in his lungs was being forced through a sieve. The conference room doors slid open as Pulaski entered, walking in like she owned the room and the whole damn ship. "Can you tell me what this is all about, Captain?" She asked. Her voice was loud and strident. "I have a patient with three broken ribs that I had to leave to Nurse Ogowa, and Lieutenant Marks has just come down with Andorian Flu."

Picard looked up at her with a pleasant, neutral expression, but Wesley could tell by the way his eyes focused on her like a bird of prey that the Captain was annoyed. "I'm not sure what it's about, Doctor, but Mr. Crusher here says that he has some important information for us. Perhaps you could sit down, so that he can begin explaining the situation."

Pulaski's eyes slid arrogantly over Wesley as she walked over to sit down by Picard. The captain looked less than pleased. A sense of hysterical humor rose in Wes in response to their petty animosity, but he clinched his teeth and shut it down. _You've got to stay in control_ the watcher hissed._ If you don't, there going to dismiss you. This is going to sound strange enough to them without you getting hysterical. Now take a deep breath, be focused, and don't leave anything out._ Wesley noticed Troi staring at him with an odd expression on her face.

He ignored her, and began speaking. "A man named Cullagh came on board yesterday, accompanied by a teenaged girl that he calls Mara. I don't know what reason he gave for coming on board, but he immediately began to seek me out. He told people that he had met me six years ago on Tau Delta IV, a planet I spent three months on while my mother was doing research involving a rather nasty pathogen that was loose on Romulus at the time. She didn't want me with her because the work was dangerous, so she left me in the care of the Federation Embassy on Tau Delta."

"It's a little out of the way planet, in between the neutral zone and San Dai space. Because of San Dai influence, it's fairly multicultural with a strong emphasis on political neutrality, but strictly speaking it's a Federation world."

The officers stared at him with professional interest, but he could tell that he really hadn't gotten their attention. _Get to the point_, the watcher said. _ That will get their attention._ Wesley cleared his throat, and wished he had a glass of water. "Cullagh has been telling everyone that he was my teacher on Tau Delta IV, but that's not entirely true. He is a private tutor in Vulcan Philosophy, but that work is only the cover for what I believe to be his true occupation. He's an enforcer, for…for certain factions of organized crime that operate on Tau Delta IV and other places. What exactly he does for them I don't know, but I have more than a passing acquaintance with some of his other activities."

Wes swallowed. The room had gone silent and still, the officers staring at him with patient and organized attention. He didn't want to continue. He didn't want these people to know what had happened to him, and he had no way of explaining what Cullagh _was _without sounding crazy. _You're going to sound crazy, anyway_ the watcher chided him, _so just spit it out_. "Cullagh's a vampire."

Wes chanced a glance around the table. Worf's face was impassive, but the others wore expressions of varying degrees of disbelief. He had to follow it up, quick, before they decided that he was either misinformed or grossly mistaken. "I don't mean that he's one of the undead, or anything like that. He comes from a species that has a need to digest blood, not in large quantities, and not as a primary source of nutrition. I'm not sure what they gain by doing so, but I think it has to do with certain molecular compounds present in the plasma of carbon based life forms."

Worf began tapping his fingers against his sleeve. Wes tried to get to the point. "I believe that Cullagh could get what he needed from the blood of animals, but he has a compulsion to ingest the blood of sentient beings. Sentient…children." His voice tapered off as he broke eye contact with the group and began running his hands carefully over the black glass surface of the table, as if inspecting it for flaws.

Picard leaned toward him. "This is…a disturbing tale, Wesley. I think you know that I trust you, but as an officer sworn to uphold Federation law, I must ask what proof you have of Cullagh's actions. I cannot request a criminal investigation or take any legal action without proper evidence."

Wes took a deep breath, and to his embarrassment actually choked on it. He'd managed to get this far without suggesting personal involvement, but there was no way to get Picard to act without admitting that he had been in Cullagh's hands.

He flushed, needles of shame stinging his cheeks. _Just get it over with_, the watcher said, grimly. "I know what Cullagh does." Wes admitted softly. "I saw it firsthand. He did it to me." Someone gasped. Wesley didn't even glance up to see who it was, just continued his confession in a verbal barrage.

"I had been on Tau Delta IV for almost two weeks before I met Cullagh, but he had been watching me the whole time. I met him at a school picnic. He said he wanted to teach me Vulcan Philosophy. He led me away from the others, and I followed him. I was being polite, and it was in Federation territory, the teachers of the Embassy school were right there…" his voice was becoming louder, more defensive. Troi reached out, and put her hand on his arm. "It's all right, Wesley. It wasn't your fault. Tell us what else happened."

Well, at least Troi believed him. The others would likely follow her lead."He led me in a circle, around the garden, and I didn't notice that we were separated from the others until we walked behind a statue with some hanging vines. As soon as we were out of their line of sight, Cullagh grabbed me. He pushed my sleeve up and cut me with a small razor he had been hiding up his sleeve, just above my wrist. It all happened so fast, I didn't even struggle. I was just stunned. The last thing I remember clearly is Cullagh closing his mouth over the wound…He um…see…" How could he continue? How could he describe three weeks of pain and degradation, the terror that had only surfaced after the fact?

"There is an enzyme that Cullagh secretes from his salivary glands when he feeds." It was a shock, to hear the watcher speak out loud. He'd never heard his own voice in such a detached manner. It was almost as if he were listening to a recording, or to someone else speaking. "It produces a euphoric effect, and leaves the victim highly susceptible to the commands of the person who has secreted it."

"After secreting the enzyme into our body, Cullagh walked us back out toward the teachers, and said that he was taking me now, like my mother wanted. I smiled and nodded. I told them Cullagh was a family friend. I found out later that Cullagh had forged a recording and documents, and submitted a request in my mother's name for me to be placed into his custody for the duration of my stay."

"He held me for almost three weeks. He would eventually have killed me, but there was a police officer working in Genhal city where I was being held who was watching Cullagh. He couldn't do anything about him because Cullagh was protected by his employers, but the officer found out that I was a Federation citizen, and that gave him a little leeway to act. He informed Cullagh's employers that their pet vampire was holding a Federation citizen, and arranged for me to be released into his care."  
Wesley looked up at them again. Everyone looked stunned. Worf still reclined impassively, arms crossed, but the gesture seemed more defensive than usual. Riker was sitting with his head down, and didn't meet Wesley's gaze. Wes felt the respect he had worked so hard to gain slowly eroding. He was changing categories in their collective image, from _protégé _to _victim_. He was glad that his mother wasn't here.

It was time to end this. "The enzyme his species secretes creates permanent changes in the brain's neurological construction. It leaves the person permanently susceptible to Cullagh's influence. A neural map of my brain should show anomalies, and I suggest that you scan Mara, as well."

Picard frowned. Starlight illuminated one side of his face in the dim light of the room, leaving the other half of him in shadow. "I want you to know that I believe you, Wesley," he said softly, "and I will begin an investigation immediately. Nevertheless, an unknown enzyme is not enough physical evidence to argue a case of this magnitude. Is there anything else that you might tell us, to help further Cullagh's prosecution?"  
Wesley bit his lower lip as he played for time, rolling the flesh between his teeth. He had made a decision to keep silent, six years ago, and he did not want to reveal the full reason for that. But it was important that he be on Tau Delta IV, and the fastest way for that to happen would be for Picard to take the Enterprise there. Cullagh had to be stopped, once and for all, in a way that did not upset the fragile balance of power between the Orion Syndicate and the Federation presence on the planet. Unfortunately, that could not be accomplished by something as simple as Cullagh's arrest and prosecution in a Federation court of law.

"The name of the police officer who rescued me is Tarmok Shae. He works for the Citizen's Protectorate in Genhal, the planet's capital city. The Protectorate has Federation approval, but it's not a Federation organization. Tarmok is Romulan, a dual citizen of the SenDai League of Worlds and the Romulan Empire. He has information about Cullagh's activities with a number of vulnerable children, spanning at least ten years. He has proof of their deaths after being held prisoner by Cullagh, and he has medical data from other sources that will support my story. There's one more thing…Tarmok functions as a liaison between the Citizen's Protectorate, the planetary Trans Species tribunal, and the Orion Syndicate. If he's willing to give it, he has proof that Cullagh is employed by the Syndicate."

Riker whistled. "So that's the "certain factions of organized crime" that you were talking about.. And Tau Delta IV is technically a Federation world." Riker caught Picard's eye. "This could be serious, Captain." Sitting beside him, Troi winced as Wesley's fingers scrapped the smooth surface of the table in a sudden spasm of anger.

_It isn't big enough for them when they know that a number of children have been killed and that Cullagh's kidnapped and tortured at least one Federation child. _The watcher snidely interjected._ No, it gets "serious" when they realize that a popular mob front is involved, and that resolving the situation could benefit their petty careers._ "That isn't what they mean. And they don't know about the tor…" Wesley tapered off, suddenly realizing that he was arguing with himself. Out loud.

Wes swallowed, and attempted to smile innocently at the group, who were looking at him with carefully noncommittal faces. "Mr. Crusher, I believe that you should go with Dr. Pulaski and Counselor Troi, so that medical tests can be run to corroborate your accusations against Mr. Cullagh. Mr. Worf, please escort our guest to the brig and his companion to sickbay." Worf rose and exited the room, tapping his combadge to begin arrangements for Cullagh's interment. Picard turned to Wesley.

"I appreciate how difficult this situation must be for you, Ensign. I do have a few more questions I need to ask, but they can wait until you've gone to sickbay. I strongly encourage you to speak freely to Counselor Troi, as well. She can be a great help for you, as you begin to deal with this trauma."

Wes had a general idea what those questions would be. For instance, why he hadn't made charges against Cullagh before, and why he was willing to do so now. Those were questions that he wasn't prepared to answer at this time. He could only hope that the physical evidence of his brain scan and Tarmok's evidence, if the police inspector was willing to release it, would keep there attention focused on Cullagh and away from him.

"Thank you for being so understanding, Captain." Wesley said. His legs felt weak, and the room seemed to shake as he stood up. He wondered why. Troi reached a hand out to steady him as he walked around the edge of the table, and kept her arm linked through his as they walked out of the room. The Counselor had always seemed so ephemeral to him that contact with her solid flesh was a slight shock. Pulaski flanked him on the opposite side, and the trio walked into the turbolift on the main bridge like they were participating in a three legged race. Wesley almost laughed.

When the doors hissed shut, he turned to Dr. Pulaski. "Dr, these tests won't take too long, will they? I have an Advanced Warp Mechanics class at 08:00." Pulaski and Troi both turned to look at him, concern and compassion on their faces. "It's after 0700 now, Wes. I don't think we'll be finished by then. Why don't you just let your teachers know that you'll miss your classes this morning? I'm sure Picard will inform Geordi that you won't be in Engineering today."

Wes started to object, but Troi massaged the hand that she was holding in order to get his attention. "I'll inform your teachers while you're being tested, Wesley. After the medical exam I think we need to talk." Wes smiled at her. "All right, Counselor." He wondered why they were both looking at him so strangely.

_They're going to think that you're a lot more than strange when this is over, Wes. It's all or nothing, now._ "I know." Wes said softly, and ignored both Pulaski and Troi as they continued on to sickbay.

When they entered the medical facility that had once been Beverly Crusher's domain, Wes perked up a little. He nodded to a medtech that he recognized, and exchanged a pleasant greeting with Nurse Sandone, a lanky Birion male. Pulaski led him back to the full body bio-neural scanner, and instructed him to lie on the biobed it was attached too. Wes felt a brief sensation of claustrophobia as the glass and metal surface of the bed's sensor closed over him. "Just relax, Ensign." Pulaski instructed him, "This won't hurt a bit."

She ran a second scanner slowly over his body, the huge instrument looking for all the world like a giant child's rattle. Wes felt increasingly vulnerable as the whirring machine extracted his body's deepest secrets. Midway through the exam, Troi came to stand beside him, and cradled his hand in both of her own. Her skin was supple, delicate, and the rhythmic pulse beating in her veins lulled him into a sense of security.

After what seemed an eternity, Pulaski lifted the scanner off of him and went into her office to analyze the results. Wes swung his long legs over the side of the biobed and sat up, extracting his hand from Troi's gentle grasp.

"Wes, there's something I need to tell you." Troi said softly, and the projected sense of compassion in her dark eyes told Wesley that it was something he would rather not hear. "Cullagh is gone. He and his companion Mara beamed down to Starbase 421 at around 24:00 last night. They then boarded a shuttle bound for Tau Delta IV. Captain Picard has informed the authorities on Tau Delta that Cullagh should be taken into custody when he arrives. There should be no problem apprehending him."

Wes pressed his lips together, but a muffled and frustrated moan escaped. His head fell into his hands. "They won't catch him, Counselor. That order…The Syndicate will get to him before the authorities ever do, didn't I tell you have an alliance with the planetary police force? How do you think he's gotten away with this for fifteen years! How do you think he managed to kidnap a Federation citizen and keep him without even an inquiry? They'll just move him to another planet. Tau Delta IV's ideal because it's easy to get people to look the other way, but…"

"Wes, Wes…you need to take a deep breath and calm down. If the authorities don't pick Cullagh up, the Enterprise will. Captain Picard has ordered the ship to Tau Delta IV. You'll be needed for questioning, anyway, and we aren't due at the Gamma Hydrae cluster for another two weeks." Troi leaned forward as she spoke, her hands resting on the biobed on either side of his knees. A part of him wanted to slap her away and tell her she didn't understand anything, and that no one was listening to him. Another part stole surrepticous glances down into her cleavage.

"Ahem." Both of them turned toward Dr. Pulaski, who had entered silently and stood in the corner of the room. The Doctor stepped forward a few paces, then stopped. "Ensign Crusher, I've finished analyzing the results of your bioscan. They show distinct anomalies in your neural pathways. They are inflexible neural patterns not normally present in the human brain, reminiscent of the imprinting mechanism that we see in species where the young instinctually follow their parents from birth."

Pulaski walked closer to them as she continued. "Such instincts are present in many non-sentient animals, like the swans of earth, but the Grizzalans of Tikus IV also have a neurological construction similar to it. Their children must obey simple commands given by their parents until they are almost adults. I've never seen it in humans, and I can't predict what effect it might have. It may be affecting your moods, and perhaps even some of your mental processes. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?"

_Yeah, _Wes thought sarcastically,_ maybe the fact that I want to please everyone else at the expense of myself, even a condescending hypocrite like you._ "Not really, doctor. I'm susceptible to Cullagh's mental influence. He…" Wes's voice faltered. "He was calling me, yesterday, and I could feel it. It was like, well, extreme anxiety and I always felt like I should be somewhere _else,_ that there was something I had to do that I was forgetting. I could have found him anywhere on the ship, just by walking toward the places where I felt less anxiety."

Troi and Pulaski shared a measuring look. Troi was the one who asked the question. "Wes," she said in an expressly gentle tone, "Do you think that it is possible to Cullagh to control or influence you with this biochemical imprinting?"

Wes bit his bottom lip. "If that were possible, Counselor, I would have boarded that shuttle with him last night. He did everything in his power to make me do it. Cullagh has never been particularly subtle, and he's getting increasingly unstable. He'd have to bleed me again to get that kind of control over me, and even then it wouldn't be _complete_ control. _Just pretty damn close to it_, the watcher interjected. _Hush, _Wes thought back,_ they don't need to know that._

Troi placed her hand on his arm. "Wes, have you been keeping watch on Cullagh? Is that how you know his behavior's been changing?" A blur of images passed behind Wes's eyes. Deleted letters, stolen reports: his payment, extracted for Tarmok's elicited promise of his silence. The man had sent him any information he had received on Cullagh for the past six years. Wes should have been more prepared. He should have known something like this would happen. He felt a twinge of guilt at speaking Tarmok's name, in the meeting, but he hadn't revealed the entirety of man's complicity in the situation, or revealed the more dangerous information he knew about the workings of Tau Sigma IV politics.

"No, Counselor." He said. "I'm just comparing it to the things he's done in the past. The first time he came after me, he was a lot more careful, he had a descent cover story and forged documents. Even so, he needed to flaunt what he was doing. He would take me out to cafes, public places after…" Wes swallowed. He'd been so intent on the disassociated intricacies of his analysis that he'd forgotten the fact that he was discussing himself. It all came back to him, now, the café, the park, brightly patterned clothes to hide the coagulating blood that made them stick to his body, Cullagh's lies to onlookers about how he had an incurable wasting disease, sitting on his tormenter's lap while Cullagh played the loving uncle, so concerned because he wouldn't eat anything…

Wes's hands clenched into fists. _Don't come apart on me, now. We're almost finished._ He took a trembling breath, and tried to continue. "He needed to flaunt his control of me in public places. I think he's lost control of his exhibitionist tendencies. Otherwise, why would he come to the Enterprise and tell several people he was looking for me, specifically? I can't believe that he's acting with the help of his employers. The Syndicate emphasizes subtlety, especially since the work that Cullagh does for them is anything but subtle."

More images flashed behind his eyes: men and women strung up by their hands and arms in an adobe room, no windows, blood and visceral flowing from their split gullets into a drain below…Tarmok's reports had been thorough. Not that Wes hadn't seen worse when he'd been _with_ Cullagh.

Troi ran her hand down his arm, and took his hand. "Wes, why don't you stay here in Sickbay and try to rest while Dr. Pulaski I go speak to the Captain about what we've found out here. We'll try to contact this Tarmok of yours, and see if he can give us any information. Try not to worry: We've contacted the _Federation _police force on Tau Delta IV. I'm sure they can manage to take Cullagh into custody, and withstand outside influence. We've told them that Mara is to be considered a hostage."

Wes bit his tongue. _You knew they wouldn't understand. What they do isn't important. What's important is that you get to Tau Delta IV. Then we can take care of everything._ "Counselor…What will we do when we get to Tau Delta IV?" "I don't know exactly, Wes." Troi responded. "Captain Picard will work with the local authorities in a criminal investigation. We have your testimony, which I will validate, the results of Dr. Pulaski's medical exam, and we'll have Mara. That should be enough to gain a conviction in a Federation court of law."

Wes swung his legs back over the biobed as he lay down, arms crossed beneath his head. "I'll see you soon, Wes. We'll keep you informed about what's going on." Wes nodded with his eyes closed, and smiled when Troi instructed the lights to dim as she exited the room. As if he would sleep at a time like this.

Sitting in front of a small viewscreen in his ready room, Picard was having a very pleasant and thoroughly useless conversation with a man named Tarmok, who worked for the Citizen's Protectorate on Tau Delta IV. "I'm very sorry, Captain Picard," Tarmok said again. "I've never heard of this young Wesley Cruiser you're speaking of, and I've certainly never ran across a creature such as Cullagh."

"Crusher, Inspector Tarmok." Picard said smoothly. "The young man's name is Crusher. And he was quite certain that he had met you, on Tau Sigma IV six years ago, and that you rescued him from a man named Cullagh. This man recently came on board the Enterprise asking for Mr. Crusher." Was it Picard's imagination, or did Tarmok's eyes widen?

"Furthermore," Picard continued, "Young Mr. Crusher seems to believe that you have knowledge of an organized crime front that has been operating on Tau Delta for some time." Picard sat back in his chair, and the two men regarded each other with mutual expressions of false geniality.

"Captain, I assure you, " Tarmok began. Picard interrupted. "Mr. Tarmok, we could go on smiling at each other while you deny everything for the rest of your day. It's getting us nowhere, and you speak with such certainty that I might be inclined to believe you except for the fact that I know that Mr. Crusher is absolutely honest, and my ship's Counselor had told me that he is in acceptable command of his mental facilities."

"So," Picard continued, steeping his fingers and leaning forward, "This can go one of two ways. Either you give me all information you have on Cullagh, or I arrest you in suspicion of encouraging criminal activity on a Federation world. I couldn't convict you, but I believe that I could hold you until this matter is resolved and public trials have a nasty way of bringing private information to light. I'm guessing you don't want your involvement with the Orion Syndicate known, Mr. Tarmok."

Tarmok sighed. "You don't know what you're dealing with, Captain. You need to let me handle this."

"You mean you admit that you know something about the "this" that is going on, Mr. Tarmok?" Picard asked, amused. Tarmok's face closed down again. "I'll send you some information in the next hour. Everything else will have to wait until you get here. Contact me on my personal comm. frequency when you do, and I'll meet you in Genhal proper at a place called Tydon's park beside the statue of the Sen Dai goddess Mayalkai."

The viewscreen went dark as Tarmok broke the connection. Picard blew out an exasperated breath. This entire situation was beginning to sound like one of his less imaginative Dick Tracy Holoprograms. Mr. Crusher had better be correct in his information about the Orion Syndicate being involved, no matter how the boy may have suffered in Cullagh's hands.

In a small shuttle bound for Tau Sigma IV, a young girl sat on the floor beside the pilot's chair. Her legs were crossed underneath her. She had been sitting motionless for so long that could no longer feel them. On one level, the deepest one, she was in pain and terrified. Reaching those emotions would have cost too much energy, though, and on the surface there was a simple, slick sensation of happiness like the afterglow in her skin after she played all day in the sunshine and then came inside to rest while her mother made lemonade and scolded her for staying out too long. She knew she was sunburned, but the experience was worth it.

Now, that sensation of pride and satisfaction remained outside of its context. Cullagh was piloting the shuttle while he ate romulan pasties, slightly sweetened dough rapped around thinly sliced meat and fruit. Every so often he would reach down and offer one to the girl, who would turn her head away in refusal. Her body told her that she was very hungry, but Cullagh had told her that she was not. The spike of pleasure that came each time she refused food was better than the reward for eating would have been, and the sick and horrified feeling that washed over her whenever she displeased Cullagh was too horrible even to contemplate.

"You'll see, Mara," Cullagh said softly, "We'll have him yet. It may not have worked out like I wanted, but you're still the perfect bait. You'll bring him to me yet, my girl." He reached down and caressed the girl's pale cheek. The girl, whose name was not Mara, smiled up at him even as her inner most self cringed in mortal dread.

On the Enterprise, Wesley walked into his quarters to find his message light blinking. Walking over to the black screen by the replicator, he touched the control panel and jumped when Tarmok's face appeared in front of him. The tight lines in the bronze skin around his mouth and his ramrod posture suggested that the Inspector was less than pleased.

"You shouldn't have told them, son. You should have come to me first." The screen went dark. That was the end of the message. No indication of whether Tarmok was prepared to release any information. No way of knowing if the Romulan would help him.

Wesley's hand involuntarily clinched into a fist, and his arm lifted as though he intended to punch the console. He pulled back at the last minute, shaking his hand loose and turning around to pace back and forth in his quarters. _Think, damnit._ _ That's_ _the only way we're going to get out of this. Pulling a temper tantrum like a petulant three year old is not going to help. Now, we need to know what Tarmok's going to do, and the best way to do that is to contact him. We need information._

Wesley stopped pacing, and pulled in a shuddering breath. "You're right. We need to contact him. He has no way of knowing what I told Picard." The watcher withdrew, satisfied. Wesley walked over to the console, and instructed the computer to return a message to the last sender. A red light appeared at the top of the screen, indicating that the vid was recording.

"Tarmok. First of all, I'm not your son. Second, you don't know what I told Picard and you weren't here at the time. There were certain things that had to happen, and in order to make them happen I had to tell Picard _something_. Third, I have a plan. We can take care of Cullagh. He's gone too far, his employers will want to wash their hands of him now. I need to know if you'll help me, because I can't do it without you." Wesley reached up, and touched the end and send button. The red light went dark, and he leaned against the wall before pushing off of it to go collapse on his sofa, head resting on the cushions and one arm thrown over the back. Nothing to do now, but wait.

In Picard's ready room the Captain, Riker and Deanna Troi sat on Picard's round sofa beside the double doors in various states of shock. The information that Tarmok had sent a scant hour ago was through. If it was accurate, it proved that Cullagh was indeed everything that Wesley said and more. There were autopsy reports and surveillance videos that, hardened officers though they were, turned their stomachs. The vids showed healthy children wither away in Cullagh's care, until they eventually died of starvation and neglect. Cullagh must have placed a command not to eat in their fragile minds, because several recordings showed that they refused to touch food even if it was set in front of them.

Autopsy reports taken just hours after death showed the same neural anomalies that Wesley's brain scan had uncovered. Tarmok had also been kind enough to send a chemical analysis of the enzyme present in Cullagh's saliva that Dr. Pulaski was examining in sickbay. Her preliminary report suggested that it was a highly specific and adaptive compound that worked in the victim's brain with a specific purpose, almost like nanocites. The enzyme created imprint patterns that made the victim susceptible to Cullagh's suggestion, and the enzyme replicated itself in the victim's body so that the succeptability continued for the rest of their natural lives. As far as Pulaski could determine in a preliminary report, the process could not be reversed.

And then there was the vid of a young human boy huddled in a windowless room, covered in seeping wounds and starving. In the interests of time they sped the vid up, so almost seven hours passed in the space of a few minuets while the boy waited until the door to the room was unlatched and opened. There was a flash of terror and dismay on the boy's face that was quickly replaced with a perverse ecstasy as Cullagh entered the room and stepped into the child's line of sight. When the boy reached out and tried to raise himself on legs too weak to stand on, they realized that it was Wesley.

Picard instinctively reached out and blanked the viewscreen that they were watching, and Troi made a small sound of dismay. When Picard and Riker to look at her, the counselor seemed composed but pale. "Captain, I didn't notice any medical scans of Wesley in the information that Inspector Tarmok sent." Troi said. "I don't believe that there were any, Counselor." Picard responded. "The recording we just saw was the only time that Wesley appeared."

"This doesn't make any sense!" Riker exploded. "They have all of this hard evidence, they have authentic recordings that link Cullagh with a number of children who later turned up dead, and yet he's never even been questioned? What the hell is happening on that planet?"

Troi tilted her head thoughtfully. "I think, Captain, that the only one who can tell us that is Mr. Crusher. He knows more than he's letting on. He allowed us to believe that Cullagh's abuse of him was primarily mental, when it in fact included substantial physical abuse and neglect. I can understand him being reluctant to share that, but I believe he also knows quite a bit more about Cullagh's involvement with the Orion Syndicate that he's willing to tell us, and he's also hiding something about his interactions with Tarmok."

Picard leaned toward her. "I consider Mr. Crusher's mental and emotional well-being to be paramount, Counselor, especially in light of what we just saw. Would it do him harm if we pushed, a little, and requested that he tell us more about what's going on?"

"I don't think so, Captain." Troi replied. "Emotionally, he doesn't seem to be on the verge of a breakdown. In fact, he's dealing with this a little _too_ well. The levels of disassociation I'm sensing from him are extreme. It's possible that he isn't dealing with this situation on an emotional level at all. I also believe he feels that he is in great danger, and that we are inadequate to protect him from it. He feels like we're out of our depth."

Riker frowned. "It seems like that would make him feel terribly vulnerable, since we're the ones responsible for his well-being."

Troi sighed and straightened her sleeves before she responded. "That's just it, Will. He vacillates between moments of despair and rage, but above everything else he's _focused_. He isn't cowed at all, and that's not a normal reaction for a sixteen year old child who has come face to face with a man who brutalized him six years prior. And as far as I know, keeping all of this a secret is completely outside of Wesley's character."

Troi's eyes had gone distant. She refocused them on Picard. "Captain, I'm afraid that Wesley might be planning to take matters into his own hands. He's revealed to me that he can track Cullagh, through means of the psychic link between them. I'm worried that if he feels we are unable to resolve the situation, he may try to get to Cullagh himself."

"So what if he does? " Riker interjected. "We've notified the authorities. Cullagh left in a clearly marked shuttle. There's no reason to expect that the Federation police force on Tau Sigma IV won't pick him up before he reaches the planet. Even if Wesley wanted to, he couldn't get to Cullagh."

"Captain," Troi said softly, ignoring Will's interruption, "Wesley Crusher is an extraordinarily intelligent boy. More intelligent, I think, than is readily apparent in day to day interaction with him. We still have no specifics regarding Cullagh's involvement of the Syndicate, so we have no way of accurately judging Mr. Crusher's concerns. At any rate, I believe it would be a mistake to underestimate Mr. Crusher. He has the ability if he chose to be extremely dangerous, to himself and to Cullagh."

Picard frowned, concern and skepticism written in every line of his face. "Counselor, this is Wesley Crusher we're talking about. I can't believe the boy would be capable of something illegal or immoral. That is what we're talking about, isn't it?"

"I don't want to believe him capable of such things either Captain." Troi argued. "But he's been very angry for a very long time, and he's just begun to allow himself to feel it. Couple that anger with the fact that he feels himself to be on a moral high ground because Cullagh is such an unsavory character, and you've got a recipe for trouble." Troi crossed her legs, and sighed. "All I'm saying, captain, is that what I'm sensing from him has me worried, and the fact that he doesn't want to discuss the situation with me or anyone else worries me even more. I believe that we should keep a close eye on Mr. Crusher."

The Captain nodded smartly. "And so we will, Counselor." Picard tapped his combadge. "Picard to Conn. What is our ETA, ensign?"

"Twelve hours and seventeen minuets to Tau Sigma IV, Captain." The bridge officer responded, in that crisp just-out-of-the-academy voice. The Captain smiled "Thank you, Ensign. Picard out."

"Troi, I want you to stay close to Mr. Crusher. Try to get inside his head, find out more about what he's thinking. Try to get me more information about Cullagh's connection with the Syndicate out of him, but most of all try to convince him he's not alone in this. The more he feels like he has us on his side, the less likely he will be to do something rash. Riker, I want you, Mr. Worf, and Dr. Pulaski to go over the rest of this…evidence, and see what conclusions can be drawn. I'm going to monitor the search for Cullagh, work in tandem with the authorities on Tau Sigma IV. We'll meet for a conference three hours before arrival, to discuss our findings."

The two officers stood. "Aye, Captain." They said in chorus, and exited the office to pursue the tasks he had sat for him. Picard leaned back and sighed as the doors closed. He couldn't put his finger on why, exactly, but he had a bad feeling about this mess.

In his quarters, Wesley Crusher sat at his table eating a delayed breakfast with hearty appetite. He's replicated scrambled eggs and French toast after receiving Tarmok's one word reply: "Yes." The message had included coordinates in Genhal city and a meeting time for four hours after the Enterprise was scheduled to arrive at Tau Delta IV. He had intentionally degraded the message before deleting it, allowing it to be broken up into bits and sent to different places in the ship's computer. The message could still be partially reconstructed, but it wouldn't be easy.

Wes chased a bite of French toast with strong coffee and considered carefully the opportunities he would have to slip away from the Enterprise and meet with Tarmok.

The easiest way would be for the Captain to allow him to beam down to the planet under the crew's protection. Then he could lose his communicator and slip away unnoticed. It would be a lot more complicated if he had to gain access to the ship's transporter system. He could override the controls and beam down to the surface with the help of a portable power supply so that when the bridge discovered an unauthorized transport they couldn't stop him by blocking power to the transporter he was using.

It was even odds as to whether he could do so while protecting his identity and encrypting the transporter log so that the ship wouldn't know where he had beamed to. He _thought _he could, but even with the encryption the crew would be able to dig out his identity and destination eventually. It would take them the better part of an hour, though. By then he would be long gone from the spot where he had transported, and there were several thousand humans on Tau Delta IV. It could take the crew days to find him.

All he needed was a few hours. _Seven hours and twenty two minuets_ the watcher whispered. Wes blinked. It always unnerved him when the watcher spoke of precise time limits or came up with the exact answer to complex equations seemingly without the benefit of any calculation. "You've got to be joking." Wes said sharply into the silence of his quarters, and then jumped when his door chime sounded causing hot coffee to splash from his cup and burn his fingers. He made a small sound of disgust.

"Come in!" he said sharply. The doors parted, and Deanna Troi stepped gracefully into his quarters. "Hello, Wes. I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time." Wesley stood, wiping his burning fingers on his pants. "No, Counselor, of course not," he replied. She hadn't: All of his preparations had been made. Besides the conformation that he'd already received from Tarmok, everything he needed to put his plan in action was either on Tau Sigma IV or in his own head.

Deanna smiled. "Well, that's a relief. I thought you sounded a little put out when you answered the door." Wes gave her a wide grin, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. He turned back toward the couch so she wouldn't notice. "I'm not put out at all. Would you like to have a seat? Maybe some coffee?" He glanced slyly back at her. "A chocolate sundae?" Her eyes twinkled as she put her hands on her hips. "No, Mr. Crusher, I do not want coffee or chocolate." Her face relaxed into practiced lines of compassion. "I would like to talk to you about Cullagh, if you feel comfortable doing so."

Wes' lips curled up into a small and bitter smile. Dark amusement danced in his eyes. "I'm not exactly comfortable with anything connected to Cullagh, but I'll talk about him if you want to."

"Good." Troi replied. She let her hands fall from her hips as she stood expectantly. Wes stood puzzled for a moment, and then realized what she was waiting for. "Why don't you sit down here on the sofa and make yourself comfortable, Counselor?" he asked. Troi nodded gracefully and moved to take her place on the right end of his curved sectional sofa. Wes sat on the other end and crossed his legs at the ankles in what he hoped was a posture of relaxed confidence.

"So," Troi said as she turned toward him. "What would you like to talk about?" Wes frowned in confusion. "I thought we were going to talk about Cullagh."

"I would like to discuss everything that's been going on, Wes, but you're the one who needs to decide how we do that. This is _your_ session. You're the one who is in control of it. If you want to talk about something other than Cullagh, you have that option."

Wes nodded even as his muscles tensed. It would have been easier to direct the flow of information if she were the one asking the questions.

"I miss my mom." He didn't even know where the words came from. They were just there, along with a sudden and acute desire to see the slim red haired woman who had been a steady and comforting presence woven through his life.

Troi nodded, but didn't speak. Wes continued, "She's always been there, you know? It's not like she crowds me or anything, she's just there if I need her. I know that I always have someone to turn to."

Troi 's strange black eyes widened as she took in more than his words. Once again, they reminded Wesley of Cullagh. He shivered.

Leaning forward and smiling as if to reassure him, Troi said, "So, you always felt safe when your mother was around."

"Yeah." He replied.

"Did you feel insecure on Tau Sigma IV, when your mother left you at the Federation Embassy?" Troi asked. Wesley bit his bottom lip, rolled the flesh between his teeth. He didn't know how to answer.

"Wes? Would you rather talk about something else?" Troi asked when the silence between them stretched too long.

_She's only asking because she wants to force the issue_ The watcher said. _Shut up_ Wesley said in return. He sensed surprise and anger, and then resignation. It was as if some great beast inside of him raised its head in alarm, then settled back to wait for a better time to strike. Wes turned his head away from Troi, and rubbed the back of his neck to hide his unease. "No, that's all right, Counselor. Yeah, I did feel out of sorts when…I mean, not at first, I was excited to be there, but…"

Wes exhaled in frustration, and shook his head as he tried to explain the unexplainable. "Look, nothing on Tau Sigma is what it appears to be. It's this incredibly beautiful world that seems so _innocent_ on the surface. They have people there called the Ha' Cai who live in the jungle without the benefit of technology at all, who only come in to the cities for medical care. They make their own clothes, grow their own food, everything. Then there are cities that are so beautiful, made of iridescent marble and crystal, and some of then have anti-grav supports so they float! Entire cities just hang in the air. It was amazing, when I first got there, and it's a Federation world, Mom couldn't know…"

He tapered off, not sure of how to make his point or even what point he wanted to make.

Troi's expression gained intensity as she leaned back into the couch. "What I hear you saying, Wes, is that it wasn't your mother's fault that you were abducted."

Wes blinked, and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so…I mean, everything looked all right, on the surface. There's no way that she could have known it'd be so dangerous, but if she'd been there, maybe…maybe nothing would have happened with Cullagh."

"So you feel that if your mother had been there, she would have protected you."

An unbearable sadness washed over Wes. He wanted with all of his being to be cradled up in his mother's arms, to be the little boy he knew that he wasn't, anymore.

"There was nothing she could have done. She was needed with the research project, and she could never have anticipated Cullagh. She had no way of knowing that the political situation on Tau Sigma IV was more…complicated than it appeared. She made the best decision she could."

Wes straightened up, pulled his uniform top down. He wasn't a little boy anymore, and there was no one who could protect him, not really. There was no use pretending otherwise. Cullagh had taught him that.

Troi gave him a businesslike nod. "Well, you've convinced me, Wes. Now you just have to convince yourself." Before he could respond or ask what she meant, Troi continued.

"Wes, have you told your mother about your abduction and abuse in Cullagh's hands?" A shadow seemed to pass over Wesley's face.

"Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to, Counselor?" His voice was monotone, cold. The watcher had spoken again. Wes quickly tried to reassert control over the situation. "Of course I didn't tell her. If I had she would have gone to the authorities, demanded a police investigation."

Troi frowned, perplexed. "You say that as if an investigation would be a negative thing. Don't you want Cullagh to answer for his crimes, be brought to justice for what he did to you and to the other children?"  
Wesley's hands clenched as a tide of rage swept over him. "I want Cullagh…"  
He stopped before he completed the thought, before he said too much, but his relentless mind flowed forward and swept him away in a tide of soothing and violent imagery. _I want Cullagh dead, I want him ground to dust, I want to feed him splinters of glass and watch the bright blood come up. I want to slice open his gut and see his steaming entrails fall on a brown clay floor. I want to do everything that was done to me back again a thousand times. I want him dead but I want him to suffer first. I want him to suffer for a long time, and I want him to have no voice to call out for mercy, like I didn't, like none of us did. I want him dead. I won't rest until he is._

The rage left him suddenly as the beast inside seized its moment and all emotion was swept away into a silent abyss by the watcher's cold and practical hand. His face, which had been expressionless, soothed itself into an open and friendly smile as Wes tried to recover his equilibrium. Troi, on the other side of his couch, tried to maintain her calm demeanor but with the returning rush of his present surroundings Wes could see that her knuckles were white and her jaw was clenched in real fear. _Good job. Yeah, that's the right way to handle things. You don't need me at all, do you?_ The watcher interjected snidely. Wes sighed, and let his face fall into his hand. "Shut up."

Riker lounged in sickbay's main office, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Pulaski sat behind her desk staring at her computer console, with her head resting in one hand. "This is appalling, Will." She said, her voice stunned. "How could this happen in Federation space? And how did it go unnoticed for so long?"

"You've got me, Doctor. I have no idea why the authorities on Tau Sigma IV haven't stopped this. For that matter, I have no idea why Wesley felt the need to keep it a secret." Riker sighed. "It really makes me wonder about the boy. It makes me question whether we actually know him at all."

Pulaski's brow furrowed. "Will, this isn't Wesley's fault. He was a child, alone on an alien world, and severely traumatized. I personally wonder more about the motivations of this Romulen who supposedly rescued him."

Riker nodded. "You're right, Kate. At any rate, getting indignant over the situation won't help to rectify it. Only information will do that. What else do we have on this enzyme?"

Pulaski slid a padd toward Riker. "As you can see, it's a rather complex and nasty piece of work. It's a triple bonded compound, with each component that is needed for its completion abundant in the bodies of any carbon based life form. Its main component is in fact a highly versatile protein chain that is at least present in over 76 of carbon based life. The enzyme is introduced into its host, and then uses basic elements present in the body to reproduce itself. I've never seen such complex organization of natural compounds without the benefit of DNA or nanocitic programming."

Riker's eyes widened. "So this isn't a naturally occurring phenomenon. It's…what, a highly personalized chemical weapon?" Pulaski shook her head. "I'm not sure what it is, Commander. I do know that according to my last probability analysis there is less than a 16 chance that the compound is the result of natural biological evolution."

The Commander stroked his beard, and nodded. "That means that Cullagh may not be from a previously unknown species. That lessens the possible military threat that he represents considerably."

Pulaski smiled sarcastically. "Perhaps. But it seems obvious that Cullagh is acting without official sanctum no matter where he's from. I doubt that there would have been much of a military threat to begin with. This is obviously a criminal case. One wonder's why the Captain feels the need for such drastic involvement, even if Mr. Crusher is directly involved."

Riker returned her smile, but his lips stretched to do it. "Any statement about how well Cullagh was aided, and by whom, would be at best premature at this point, Doctor. So would speculation about Captain Picard's motivations. Why don't we let the brass and their analysts assess military threat, and get on with our report to the Captain."

Pulaski's cold blue eyes took on an adversarial gleam, but she nodded and scrolled down on her data padd. "The next mystery Cullagh presents us with is his need to drink blood. Wesley said any blood would do, even animal blood, but I'm not sure how much of Mr. Crusher's insight into Cullagh is based in empirical evidence or mere intuition." Riker nodded. "I don't believe that Wesley is capable of being objective about the situation, Doctor. We should take his opinion into account, but not act on it until we verify it through other means." He said softly.

Pulaski gave a brief nod in agreement, and then continued. "In this case, I believe that Mr. Crusher is mistaken. All of Cullagh's victims reported to us by Tarmok were young boys, between the ages of ten and twelve. They all had dark hair and eyes. I believe that those physical characteristics …attract Cullagh's attention, and for that reason most of Cullagh's victims were young Romulen boys living on Tau Sigma IV."

"Easy access and lack of police concern might have also contributed to that bias." Rker muttered. Pulaski continued, "There are only three biomolecular compounds common to both Romulan and Human blood. We really aren't that similar, biologically, which explains why Humans and Romulan, or Humans and Vulcans for that matter, are so rarely able to reproduce successfully. Of those two, only one is common to Tellerites as well, and _neither _is present in the Ha'Cai, Tau Sigma IV's native species. And yet, Cullagh chose victims from each of those races."

Pulaski leaned back smugly, as if she had already solved the case. Riker looked perplexed. "So, does this mean that Cullagh does or does not have to ingest the blood of sentient beings, Doctor?" Pulaski smiled wanly. "It means, Commander, that Cullagh does not need to ingest blood at all. The only other substances he could need are found in ample supply in substances other than blood."

Riker's brow furrowed in confusion. "So, why is there a substance in Cullagh's saliva that renders his victims helpless, if it's not there to aid him in blood drinking?"

"I don't know, Will." Pulaski responded. "But I would suggest that it lends weight to my argument that Cullagh's abilities did not occur naturally. This man's no monster, Will. At most, he's been genetically enhanced. What we have here is a run of the mill serial killer, something I hoped never to see in my lifetime."

A shadow passed over Riker's face. "Doctor, "he said softly, "How many children had this man murdered in the last fifteen years?" Pulaski carefully placed the data padd down on her desk and linked her hands tightly together as her face lost all expression. "At least forty three and Inspector Tarmok suspects that there may have been others. If you add Mara, assuming we don't find her in time, the total could be well over fifty."

Riker gave a grim smile. "Cullagh may not be a vampire, doctor, but he's sure as hell a monster."

It was night in the city of Genhal. A gentle tropical breeze blew deep green leaves and fragile blossoms around the city streets. In the center of the capital city the streets were paved with an iridescent white stone that gleamed with shifting rainbow colors, prism like, when the sun shone on it. The buildings were made either of colored crystal or the same pearlescent material as the street.

When Wesley Crusher first walked these streets, he'd thought that the entire city looked like it was made of hard candy. Cullagh smiled as he remembered that confidence, along with other whispered secrets he'd encouraged his boy to confide in him. He yanked Mara's hand, forcing her to walk faster even as her weakened legs stumbled. Mara's well being didn't concern him. She was only here to fulfill a specific purpose, to bring his lost boy home to him.

The central sections of the city that they walked through were meticulously clean and maintained, kept so by a veritable army of maintenance bots that floated unobtrusively around the city's twisting streets. The bots resembled soccer balls, their chrome finish covered with darker panels that slid open to allow mechanical arms that ended in specialty tools to extend from their spherical bodies. Spirited children or unruly adults sometimes captured the bots and played an anarchic version of kickball with them. The bots patiently waited until their captives released them, then continued on with their assigned tasks.

The bots were out in force tonight. They did not make a visual recording of a tall pale haired man pulling a scrawny adolescent girl into a twisting alley that led over the Wall, the adobe monstrosity that separated the Federation section of the city from Romulen neighborhoods when her legs finally failed, but they followed after the pair cleaning up the dark trail of blood left when the rough stone of the street shredded her pale skin.

Two hours later Cullagh drug the girl by the scruff of the neck, like a snarling bitch with a wayward pup, into a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of the city and flung her at the feet of a muscle-bound Ha'Cai idiot named Jenqa. He hadn't been able to take public transports because of the Federation warrant for his arrest, and he was thoroughly out of sorts.

"Take care of her." Cullagh ordered the Ha'Cai, and the large man with sloping brow ridges and the general features of a troll nodded as he scooped the girl up off of the floor and slung her over his shoulder like a rag doll. He carried her down a trapdoor in the left corner of the room, to the level with cells.

He left her in an adobe brick room, featureless except for the chains hanging from the ceiling and the drain on the floor. The stains that ringed the drain were dark enough to be rust or blood, but Mara didn't stir as Jenqa laid her gently down on the stone floor and folded her arms over her stomach. He arranged her tattered skirts so that they covered as much of her skin as possible, and bolted the door on his way out.

When Jenqa climbed back up to the warehouse, Cullagh was sitting at the computer console by the loading dock doors, immersed in inventory lists and ignoring the world. This warehouse, and all it contained, was his responsibility. The dock was neatly stocked, with plastic cylinders and metal crates aligned in symmetrical rows with consoles at each end that revealed their contents. Some rows were covered with colored tarps, the color indicating under which conditions the contents should be stored. It all appeared innocuous, and it was. The warehouse was, for the most part, a strictly legitimate depot for wealthy people to store their merchandise until it was shipped offworld. Very few people knew about the basement levels.

Cullagh was not concerned with Mara any longer. He knew that Jenqa had done what he asked, because Jenqa always did what he asked, exactly what he asked, whether it was to buy a specific loaf of bread at Mannhai's bakery three streets away or to press just so on a project's arm so that the bones would shatter.

Jenqa had been assigned to him by the Orion Syndicate for twelve of the fifteen years he'd been exiled on this psychedelic mudball, and two injections of Cotter's enzyme a month ensured the behemoth's loyalty. Cullagh would never sully himself by taking Jenqa's blood into his body, so he extracted the enzyme and used a hypospray. He'd had to slip up behind the Ha'Cai for the first injection, but Jenqa had meekly submitted for all of the rest.

No one knew about the injections, and Jenqa was so dim that no one noticed any changes in his behavior. The Ha'Cai weren't worth a second thought as a species and Jenqa himself was beneath contempt. So Cullagh didn't wonder where Jenqa had gone to after he slipped out of a side door and shuffled off down the street toward the Wall. Jenqa would come when called, and whatever else he did, like Jenqa himself, wasn't worth anyone's attention.

Deep in the bowels of a brownstone building that housed Genhal's Citizen Protectorate, Tarmok Shae sat alone on a rickety wooden chair in front of a scarred stone table that held a data console, a small data Padd, and a cup of black Romulen tea. The adobe room did not have windows. The warm gloom of the room was a welcome relief for Tarmok, who'd spent most of the day having his senses assaulted by the psychedelic Sen Dai monstrosities on the other side of the Wall.

He picked up the cup and swirled the bitter, fragrant stuff as he drank it. As the familiar rush of the strong stimulant moved through his bloodstream, he leaned forward and sighed. He knew he drank too much of this stuff. Sarah, his former wife and sometimes lover, said that it would kill him, one day. Shae never contradicted her, but he knew that his work would kill him long before the tea had the chance.

He leaned forward and pulled the padd toward him, thumbing the screen to show him both Stardate and local time zones. He always wondered why the Federation didn't hold with programming a single padd to perform multiple functions. He'd only carried one padd his entire life, and it served him well enough. In his mind, It was yet another example of Federation excess. They acted as though everything in the universe was free, and looked down upon other governments if they could not afford a largess that equaled their own.

Tarmok sighed again. In another five hours, the Enterprise would arrive. Two hours after that, an away team would beam down to Genhal park and find a package waiting for them instead of a person. Shae himself had no delusions that Federation goodwill extended to a Romulan, even a dual citizen like himself, and thus did not intend to put himself in their hands. Ever.

He _would_ meet with Wesley Crusher. He had full confidence that the brat could slip away from his elders. The boy was smarter than his people gave him credit for. He would have made a good Romulen, or a police officer. He might even have the stomach for it, too, after Cullagh.

Shae's face lost all expression as a familiar weary rage swept over him. The reality of Cullagh, and the fact that the insatiable beast that had been given free reign to prey on innocent children for fifteen years still moved him to excess. It was one of the few things that did. Cullagh had averaged two or three Romulen children a year, in spite of Tarmok's best efforts to protect them.

The situation would never have been tolerated in the Empire, but the Romulen population of Tau Delta IV was, for the most part, made up of political refugees and escaped criminals who were looking for a fresh start. Their fortunes were spent in an attempt to escape their former circumstances, the SenDai barely tolerated them, and the Romulen Empire would be happier if they all died. Luckily for them, the Empire was not willing to expend the resources needed to make that dream a reality.

In short, the Romulen citizens here were unwanted and impoverished and as a result particularly vulnerable. Cullagh had chosen children more vulnerable still, the children of alcoholics, orphans, troublemakers and in a few instances the mentally or physically disabled. Children with such flaws were considered to be a stain on their families honor, proof of some distant transgression. They were the sole reason that some exhausted mothers or fathers ended up on this rock.

Tarmok's hands tightened in anger, but he made himself place the pad carefully on the table as he stood up. There was no reason to destroy a perfectly good padd just to indulge his emotions. He swung a grey cloak over his brown uniform as he trudged up the stairs to the main office building. The babble of at least twenty different languages hit him as officers conversed in native tongues, took statements in another language, and took calls in yet another. The voices were either bored or dissident, violent curses from suspects and prisoners being transferred mingling with the apathetic tones of receptionists getting information on yet another domestic dispute. He asked the secretary, an imposing Ha'Cai women who had worked at CP headquarters for as long as Tarmok could remember to deliver a note to Kino at Alvaraian's Pastry Shop that said, simply, "statue." She didn't even glance up at him while she took down his instructions. She was used to the odd requests he made.

Shae walked down the hall adjacent to the main office and stopped by his personal storage unit in the armory for his Repulsor staff, a short and unobtrusive black staff that was standard equipment for all law enforcement on Tau Delta IV. The staff was a device similar to a Klingon pain stick, but it gave off a Repulsor field as well as pain, and was capable of knocking an assailant unconscious from five feet away. Shae tucked the staff into his belt holster, and felt the familiar reassuring jostle of the staff brushing against the completely illegal Romulen disrupter inside the hidden pocket he'd sown into his trousers.


	2. Chapter 2

Deep in the bowels of a brownstone building that housed Genhal's Citizen Protectorate, Tarmok Shae sat alone on a rickety wooden chair in front of a scarred stone table that held a data console, a small data Padd, and a cup of black Romulen tea. The adobe room did not have windows. The warm gloom of the room was a welcome relief for Tarmok, who'd spent most of the day having his senses assaulted by the psychedelic San Dai monstrosities on the other side of the Wall.

He picked up the cup and swirled the bitter, fragrant stuff as he drank it. As the familiar rush of the strong stimulant moved through his bloodstream, he leaned forward and sighed. He knew he drank too much of this stuff. Sarah, his former wife and sometimes lover, said that it would kill him, one day. Shae never contradicted her, but he knew that his work would kill him long before the tea had a chance.

He leaned forward and pulled the padd toward him, thumbing the screen to show him both Stardate and local time zones. He always wondered why the Federation didn't hold with programming a single padd to perform multiple functions. He'd only carried one padd his entire life, and it served him well enough. In his mind, It was yet another example of Federation excess. They acted as though everything in the universe was free, and looked down upon other governments if they could not afford a largess that equaled their own.

Tarmok sighed again. In another five hours, the Enterprise would arrive. Two hours after that, an away team would beam down to Genhal park and find a package waiting for them instead of a person. Shae himself had no delusions that Federation goodwill extended to a Romulan, even a dual citizen like himself, and thus did not intend to put himself in their hands. Ever.

He _would_ meet with Wesley Crusher. He had full confidence that the brat could slip away from his elders. The boy was smarter than his people gave him credit for. He would have made a good Romulen, or a police officer. He might even have the stomach for it, too, after Cullagh.

Shae's face lost all expression as a familiar weary rage swept over him. The reality of Cullagh, the fact that the insatiable beast had been given free reign to prey on innocent children for fifteen years still moved him to excess. It was one of the few things that did. Cullagh had averaged at least one or two Romulen children a year, in spite of Tarmok's best efforts to protect them.

The situation would never have been tolerated in the Empire, but the Romulen population of Tau Delta IV was, for the most part, made up of political refugees and escaped criminals who were looking for a fresh start. Their fortunes were spent in an attempt to escape their former circumstances, the San Dai barely tolerated them, and the Romulen Empire would be happier if they all died. Luckily for them, the Empire was not willing to expend the resources needed to make that dream a reality.

In short, the Romulen citizens here were unwanted and impoverished and as a result particularly vulnerable. Cullagh had chosen children more vulnerable still, the children of alcoholics, orphans, troublemakers and in a few instances the mentally or physically disabled. Children with such flaws were considered to be a stain on their families honor, proof of some ancient transgression. They were the sole reason that some exhausted mothers or fathers ended up on this rock.

Tarmok's hands tightened in anger, but he made himself place the pad carefully on the table as he stood up. There was no reason to destroy a perfectly good padd just to indulge his emotions. He swung a grey cloak over his brown uniform as he trudged up the stairs to the main office building.

The babble of at least twenty different languages assaulted his ears as officers conversed in native tongues, took statements in another language, and took calls in yet another. The voices were either bored or dissident, violent curses from suspects and prisoners being transferred mingling with the apathetic tones of receptionists obtaining information on yet another domestic dispute.

He asked the secretary, an imposing Ha'Cai women who had worked at CP headquarters for as long as Tarmok could remember to deliver a note to Kino at Alvaraian's Pastry Shop that said, simply, "statue." She didn't even glance up at him while she took down his instructions. She was used to the odd requests he made.

Shae walked down the hall adjacent to the main office and stopped by his personal storage unit in the armory for his Repulsor staff, a short and unobtrusive black staff that was standard equipment for all law enforcement on Tau Delta IV. The staff was a device similar to a Klingon pain stick, but it gave off a Repulsor field as well as pain, and was capable of knocking an assailant unconscious from five feet away. Shae tucked the staff into his belt holster, and felt the familiar reassuring jostle of the staff brushing against the completely illegal Romulen disrupter inside the hidden pocket he'd sown into his trousers.

The pocket ripped away with ease, but even so Tarmok worried about having enough time to draw the weapon in a confrontation. It took almost three seconds to rip the pocket, palm the disruptor, and aim. To a civilian it wouldn't seem to be very much time, but anyone who claims three seconds isn't a long time has never been in a fire fight.

Tarmok walked out of the armory and headed for the main door of the building. He entered a small lounge to the left of the entrance, an alcove softened by black carpet that held a small collection of faded satin chairs and a scarred table placed haphazardly beside huge glass double doors that were framed by imposing fluted columns. The color black was a holy color in Romulen culture, the color for rebirth and prosperity, but even so no one ever sat in here. People visiting a loved one in the basement prison had a better waiting area downstairs, and no one else wanted to hang out at CP headquarters that long.

The inspector checked to see if anyone had followed him, and then stealthily retrieved a small bundle wrapped in stained brown paper that he'd deposited in an access panel behind a faded red chair in the lounge. After securing the bundle inside one of his sleeves, he moved on.

He exited the building through a long, sloping hallway on the back left hand side of the complex. The corridor ended in a slide to the waiting dumpster where prisoner's soiled clothing was deposited before it was reclaimed and cleaned. Tarmok grunted as he swung his legs down into the chute. _I'm getting too old for this_ he thought ruefully as he spread his legs and braced his arms on the sides of the chute so that he wouldn't slide too quickly.

He skidded to a halt just before the end, dangling his legs over the dumpster as he held on to either side of the chute. He swung up a few times before he managed to catch hold of the railing beside the dumpster with his feet. After he climbed onto the railing, he had to walk halfway around the building again before he found the maintenance ladder down to the street.

It was a ridiculous way to exit the building, but if he'd simply walked out the main entrance the maintenance bots waiting outside would have recorded his exit. There were no bots maintaining the streets on this side of the Wall, and so as long as he avoided areas where they were stationed and specifically programmed to record all activity his excursion wouldn't be recorded.

Tarmok walked briskly down the alley, and turned onto Kavarh Street. The streets on this side of the city were paved with grey asphalt, and the buildings lining them were either brown or grey. They stood proud and straight, rectangular blocks with sloping red tiled roofs. The Romulen citizens of Tau Sigma IV tried to make this place look as much like home as possible.

Most of them had chosen the planet because its raw and natural beauty reminded them of their home world. It was no secret that Romulus was the most striking planet in the quadrant, with deep green forests and crystalline waterfalls. Tarmok had never seen the planet in person, but his mother had shown him vids, starting when he was too young to even comprehend what he was seeing. She'd wanted to make sure that when he thought of _home_ he thought of Romulus.

She'd failed, of course. No matter how captivating pictures on a viewscreen could be, home was a context, a place that lived in you as much as you lived in it. Shae belonged _here_, a bastard son on a bastard world where beauty was a common masquerade for cruelty. He'd grown up with the simple truth that Wesley Crusher had learned at Cullagh's hands: Nothing in the universe is free. Not ever.

Tarmok turned left onto Alevarian Street and walked past a collection of shops and sidewalk markets. The street vendors hawked clothing, fruits and vegetables, and novelties. One stand sold only incense, and Shae slowed his gait as the sweet and spicy fragrances wafted on to the street.

He smiled at an elderly Romulan woman who'd been selling fresh Hall'vah eggs and well aged Andurian Brandy beside the Alevarian Bakery for almost fifty years. Shae knew that she kept Hall'vah pigeons on her tenement balcony, much to her neighbors' dismay, so the eggs were no mystery. He had yet to ascertain where she was getting the brandy. He'd never inquired too closely, because it was very good brandy at an affordable price, and he bought about a bottle a month from her.

There was no door to the Alevarian, just a brownstone archway. The sable columns lined the rough adobe walls all of the way in. Tables were made of rough clay, darker than the walls, with sedimentary rocks thrown in the mix as the concrete was setting. Some of the tables were filled with mica and quartz, and they sparkled at night in the lamplight. The tables lined the walls in two rows, where patrons sat on wooden benches and read, studied, or played Qui chi, a Romulen game similar to chess but with three players who advanced on both of their opponents with black, green, or white stones.

Tarmok walked down the wide, open center of the room to the counter through the sedated bustle of the breakfast crowd. He stood in the longest line, where people were getting their Hall'vah eggs poached on the Bakery's griddle for a modest fee and stuffed into their rolls and pastries. When his turn came, he requested a heated roll stuffed with cheese and onion and spiced meat, and more tea. The counter boy wrapped his food in waxed cloth, and poured the tea into the first in a line of mugs waiting on the counter that were already a quarter full of sugar. When Tarmok handed over his coins he slipped the brown packet out of his sleeve and handed it over to the counter boy, who quickly dropped it into his apron pocket.

Tarmok smiled as he headed outside, his hands wrapped around the warm food. The counter boy didn't know him, but he knew to give the packet to Kino. When Kino received the package coupled with the secretary's message, he would know what to do. Loyalty and conspiracy were two Romulan traditions still alive and well on Tau Sigma IV.

The street traffic was beginning to pick up on Alevarian Street as the sun rose. Personal transports soared above his head, but they were mostly filled with tourists on their way to somewhere else. There were few Romulan families that could afford such a luxury. Laborers on their way to work, and the unemployed searching for somewhere to work walked on the sidewalks on either side of the street. There were only two personal transporter sites on this side of the wall. One was restricted to Federation citizens only, and the other cost more than most people could afford.

Luckily, Tarmok was not most people. He walked crisply down the street and ducked into the warren of alleys and back ways that provided the quickest way of reaching his destination. Here the upper floors of buildings were mostly apartments, and people strung their clothing out to dry on lines that stretched between the open windows far above his head. Almost no one on this side of the wall could afford replicators, so they bought their clothing from tailors or sewed it themselves. The ground floors of the buildings were mostly warehouses, storage areas for goods to be traded on the other side of the Wall. Some were legal, some weren't. Again, Tarmok didn't investigate too closely.

Warm crust flaked off into the cloth as he engulfed his pastry in huge bites. Out of long habit, he carefully shook the crumbs into his mouth, not allowing any to fall onto the street. It had been a very long time since he had been hungry enough to justify the action, but the memory of hunger stays with a person. Tarmok couldn't abide waste. He folded the cloth around a handful of pennies, and when he passed a group of ragged children and mangy dogs playing a chaotic version of stickball he called out a name.

"Kamvek." One of the boys gave the ball a well-aimed kick toward a grated drain that served as a goal, and ran over to him. Tarmok handed him the cloth, and the boy ran down the street. Tarmok laughed and shook his head. He couldn't even _remember_ ever having that kind of energy. Kamvek would either keep the cloth, or turn it into The Alevarian for another penny. The coins he would distribute fairly among Tarmok's small gang of gutter spies, children that he paid to keep watch on the streets.

He didn't ask that they spy on their parents or the other adults in their world, only that they keep an eye out for strangers and report anything odd that might happen. He'd done the same thing when he was a child. The network of street children that he carefully cultivated was the sole reason that he'd found out about Cullagh in the first place. His kids had told him that other children were going missing, children who had no parents to report their disappearance.

Cullagh had been more cautious, in the beginning. By the time he began grabbing children who did have parents, it was clear to everyone concerned that he couldn't be stopped. The Syndicate controlled all illegal traffic on and offworld that took place on this side of the wall, and a good bit of the legitimate trade as well. The neighborhood could not afford a confrontation with them.

Once it was known that Cullagh was theirs, Tarmok had actually considered turning to the Federation. Luckily, his native tendencies to avoid them had won out. It wasn't too long before he had discovered through his activities as liaison to the Inter Species Tribunal that there was a chain of communication between the Syndicate and a covert Federation intelligence group that had infiltrated the Federation police force in Genhal.

The detective sighed, and carefully removed the cover on his mug of tea. Steam rose above the rim only to falter as it met the oppressive humidity of a tropical world. Tarmok took a careful sip, mindful that the Alevarian always kept their tea too hot to drink, knowing that most of their patrons were on their way to somewhere else and would carry the mug a ways before tasting it.

He found it acceptably warm, and took longer swallows as he increased his pace toward a warehouse in the "business" district. The tongue curling bitterness of the tea was not really masked by the massive amount of sugar, but the cloying sweetness provided an aftertaste that made drinking the tea bearable. The Alevarian made strong tea.

Tarmok swallowed the dregs of the mug, grimacing at the added bitterness caused by tea leaves at the bottom, and sat it down on the ground just as he entered the warehouse he was looking for. .

He placed his palm on the pad beside the door, and waited as it read both his fingerprints and his DNA. After a few seconds, the door slid open.

A transporter pad lay on the other side of the expansive warehouse past shelves stacked with every thing that could be sold, from replicators to robots to San Dai silk carpets. Robotic lifts slid from one end of the shelves to the other, lifting platforms up to the highest shelves so that workers could reach them. There were no workers here today and no guards either.

The entire warehouse was equipped with a state of the art security system. There was no reason to lock the doors. The automated system was fully capable of dealing with intruders. Tricorders recorded his every movement, and catalogued everything that he'd brought in with him, down to his clothing and the dirt under his toenails. The system was self-correcting, and constantly monitored its programming for outside tampering. The San Dai owned this warehouse, this one and two others on this side of the Wall. San Dai were fond of automated gadgets, and the affection was apparently mutual because their cybernetic servants rarely failed them.

Shai threaded his way through rows of ceiling high shelving to the other side where the transporter lay. One half of operations console was blackened, as if it had been burned. The San Dai owned the warehouse, but Romulen citizens had to pay for their own transporter and pay a fee to the San Dai for housing it.

Tarmok sat down in front of an antiquated federation style communication screen and winced when his fingers brushed against it and came away with an oily residue. He wiped both his fingers and the console off with the end of his cloak, and then untied it and draped it across the back of the chair.

He keyed the panel for transmission to CP Headquarters, and smiled when the secretary's plain face appeared on the screen. "This is Shae, reporting in. I'm going to be away for a few days. I've been called in to an ongoing investigation. You'll get my reports, but I won't be back in the office for a while." The secretary nodded, and keyed the information to both the CP director and to Shae's direct supervisor.

Tarmok had worked at CP headquarters for nearly fifty years. Everyone there trusted him. The supervisor would assume that he had been pulled off of his regular duties by the director, and the director would assume that his supervisor had done the same thing. By the time they got around to figuring it out, several hours or possibly days would have passed and Tarmok would likely be out of a job.

For someone who had worked so hard to get where he was at, that knowledge should have been chilling. Instead, it was merely inconsequential. By the time anyone started to look for him, Cullagh would be dealt with and Tarmok would disappear into the jungles for a while. By the time he came out, his friends on the Inter Species Tribunal would have settled the situation.

Or, perhaps they would decide that the situation was too sticky to deal with and he would be captured and quietly executed.

Either way, he would win. He reached out and punched an identification code into the console and sent a pre-recorded message to one of his contacts in the Orion Syndicate. Then he propped his boots up on the console and leaned back, waiting.

Shut away in his quarters on the USS Enterprise as it sped toward Tau Delta IV, Wesley Crusher was busy. He'd been relieved of duty and forbidden to attend school by Deanna Troi, and she'd left his quarters with stern recommendations that he rest.

He had no intention of resting. Doctor Pulaski has come by an hour ago, to give him a mild sedative. He'd accepted the hypospray, and then when she walked out he'd pulled out his own dose of stimulants. Being the son of a doctor did have some advantages.

The two drugs warred in his system and left him feeling disconnected, twice removed from reality as though he were moving through the stifling weight of warm water.

He checked his calculations twice, even three times because of it. He couldn't afford to make a mistake.

His slim fingers flew over a personal console, carefully crafting the program that would allow him to attach a small power cell to the transporter in cargo bay three. The program would also delay sensor response, so that when an unauthorized transport occurred it would be at least nine minuets before the computer would inform the bridge.

It was the best he could do, and it was more important than hiding his identity. They would figure out it was him eventually, anyway.

The only remaining challenge involved getting away from his quarters, picking up a power cell from storage, and making his way to the cargo bay without being detected.

The computer chimed an alarm just as he transferred his program to an isolinear chip. It was time.

Wes walked over to his table, and removed his com badge. His face was expressionless as he rolled the gleaming sliver badge in his hand. He'd worked so hard for it. And now he was willingly giving it up.

_There are always consequences_ the watcher whispered. The cold voice was low, almost comforting. Wes nodded. Nothing was free. He knew that.

His expression tightened in resolve, and he laid the badge carefully on the table before walking over to his closet. He chose a pair of solid brown pants, and a tan shirt. He covered the shirt with a chocolate brown light coat, with a hood. The earth colors would make him blend in on the Romulen side of the Wall. If he kept his head down, he could pass for Romulen.

Wes slipped the isolinear chip in his coat pocket, then pulled the hood up and walked over to the door. He glanced down both sides of the corridor before stepping out and heading to the storage bay with his hands in his pockets and his head down. An odd smile flitted on his lips, the physical evidence of both shame and triumph. They should have posted guards at his door.

Captain Picard sat at the head of the briefing room table, his lips compressed into a thin line. The officers that surrounded the table wore similarly displeased expressions. Riker held Troi's hand and looked aside, as if ashamed. Dr. Pulaski wore her typical condescending expression, as though she were really too good to be sitting there. Worf's face was impassive as usual, but his eyes were wide and angry.

Troi broke the awkward silence. "Captain, do you know how Cullagh landed his shuttle without being detected?"

The Captain sighed. "No, Counselor, and the officer I talked to couldn't give me any reasons either. He just told me that the shuttle was located one hour ago in a bog on the outskirts of Genhal. There was evidence of a transport from the shuttle, but there was no log and therefore no way to track the transport."

Riker rubbed his forehead. "Captain, it's possible that we dismissed Mr. Crusher's concerns too readily. This smacks of conspiracy. It is not typical of highly trained Federation officers to have the wool pulled over their eyes like this. It's possible that the Orion Syndicate has some influence within the Police Force."

Pulaski looked at Riker, her eyes drawn together in disbelief. "Commander, you do realize you're suggesting that an outside force has infiltrated a federation institution."

Riker glanced sharply at her, and then continued. "It might be better if we involved young Mr. Crusher in this discussion, Captain. I agree we that we need to be sensitive to his emotional state, but we need any information he can give us. I don't think that we can afford to be patient with him any longer."

"No." Troi spoke the word softly, but it settled over the room and silenced Riker, who turned toward her and waited for her to continue.

"Mr. Crusher is not capable of any sort of objectivity in this matter, and he has become increasingly irrational. I don't believe that we can trust him to act in our best interest or in his. I think that it would be best if he remained confined to quarters for the duration of this investigation. We must remember that he is a victim in this situation, not a colleague and not a suspect." Her opaque gaze drifted over to Riker, who looked away.

Pulaski spoke up, "I gave him a sedative almost two hours ago, anyway. He should be asleep for several more hours."

Picard gave Pulaski a nod of acknowledgement, but his attention was focused on the impassive Klingon at the other end of the table.

"Mr. Worf, you've been very quiet since Mr. Crusher's revelation. What is your opinion in this matter?"

Worf stiffened, visibly weighing an undisclosed dilemma. "I…would like to reserve any comments at this time."

The Captain blinked, surprised, and leaned toward Worf before he spoke. "If you don't want to comment at this time, then I can give you time to compose your response. However, Mr. Worf, I cannot make an informed decision without my senior staff's input."

Worf's impassive face underwent a subtle change. It was as close to cringing as the burly Klingon could get. He seemed to settle as he reached an internal decision, then he squared his shoulders and spoke. "I do not need to compose my response captain, but I am unsure how my opinion will be received." Picard eyes flickered in surprise. "I value the opinions of each individual on my crew, Mr. Worf, even if I don't personally agree with them."

Worf nodded, steeled himself, and spoke. "I believe that Mr. Crusher is obligated to take part in this investigation, Captain. It would lessen the weight of his dishonor."

Riker's blue eyes flashed dangerously. "What dishonor is that, Mr. Worf.?"

Worf answered, " Mr. Crusher, although a child, was old enough to understand that Cullagh's actions were illegal and that he posed a danger for other children. He had an obligation as a federation citizen to report any knowledge of criminal activity on a federation world. After he was freed of Cullagh's influence, he should have done so. I find it difficult to believe that he was unable to reveal Cullagh's actions in the entire six years that he has been free of the man."

The table fell silent. Riker and Pulaski held shocked expressions. Troi and the Captain seemed unsurprised. Picard looked directly into his security officer's eyes as he spoke.

"I value your opinion, Mr. Worf, but I think it would be best if you did not judge Mr. Crusher based on Klingon expectations. He is human, after all. He should not be held to Klingon standards and, more importantly, I believe it would be detrimental for him to learn of any negative judgment regarding his behavior at this time."

Picard's voice held the steely weight of command, and Worf nodded his acquiescence.

"Nevertheless," Picard continued, "I believe that Mr. Riker is correct. We must have Wesley Crusher's input. I realize that he is a victim in this instance, but he is also an Acting Starfleet officer and a bright, resilient individual. Simply put, we need him. A young woman's life is in danger, and if Mr. Crusher can help us at all he must be persuaded to do so."

Picard leaned forward, twining his fingers and letting the finality of his decision settle over the other officers. "We will let Wesley sleep off the sedative, but then I expect some answers from him. We'll interrogate him if we have to."

"That could cause considerable trauma at this point, Captain, not to mention further damage the trust he has placed in us." Troi's voice was contained and unencumbered by emotion or argument. She simply stated a fact.

Picard sighed. "I don't want to do this, Counselor, but I have no other viable option. This girl that Cullagh's holding must be protected, and it seems that we cannot expect as much help from the local Police as we thought. Mr. Riker, Worf, Counselor, we should be approaching Tau Sigma IV in less than an hour. I would like the three of you to beam down and meet Mr. Tarmok at the appointed time. Dr. Pulaski, I would like you to continue working on this genetically engineered enzyme that Cullagh produces. If possible, find a way to counter it, or at least lessen its effect."

Pulaski nodded regally.

The rest of the officers wore blank expressions, as if they were afraid to show their true emotions. Worf was the only one who seemed pleased.

Picard regarded each of them with stern pride. "I know that this decision, this entire horrific situation has been difficult for each of you." The captain said softly. "You have responded admirably, and I know you will continue to do so. None of us wants further harm to come to Wesley, but I submit that it would be a _greater_ harm if we did not use every means possible to bring Cullagh to justice. Mr. Crusher will recover from this, with our help, and that task will be easier for him if he knows that Cullagh is no longer able to freely murder children in Federation space. Knowing that he aided us in that task, however reluctantly, will enable him to regain trust in us and in himself."

Picard stood, and straightened his shirt. "I expect you to do your utmost in each of your assigned tasks. Dismissed."


	3. Chapter 3

Tarmok jolted awake at the hum of a transporter beam, his left hand grasping for his disruptor. The shimmering light in front of his sleep dazzled eyes coalesced into a lanky humanoid male in sedate shades of brown, wearing a coat with a hood. As Tarmok waited, ready to rip through cloth and draw the disruptor, a slim pale hand reached up to push back the hood.

Even after six years of maturation, the boy's features were still recognizable. He had a face that looked like no one else's.

"Wesley."

The boy nodded. A grim and manic amusement darkened his eyes as he smiled. "So, Tarmok. How have you been?"

The Inspector let his hand fall away from his weapon, but kept a state of vigilance. The boy didn't look too stable.

"I've been all right, Wesley. You've done quite a bit of growing in the past six years." Wes's face lost all expression, and he stood watching Tarmok for several long and uncomfortable seconds. "How did you manage to get off of your ship?" Tarmok asked, alarm bells ringing. A good bit of this venture relied of Wes's sanity. If the lad wasn't rational, there could be serious problems.

That dead smile returned. "I just walked into a cargo hold and beamed down, if you can believe it. Of course, they trusted me enough to make me an Acting Ensign, so they didn't expect me to do anything like this. I guess I showed them."

He stepped down off of the platform and began pacing the floor of the warehouse, all lanky bone and jittery nerves. "So what do we do next, uncle."

The last word was spoken in Romulen, a term of endearment and respect, but the question made Tarmok frown. "I thought you said you had a plan." Tarmok's tone was dangerous, a stark reminder that Wes was no longer in Federation territory.

Wes frowned in turn. "Of course I have a plan. I'm going to tell the Orion Syndicate that Cullagh came after me on a Federation vessel, that he used his own name and address. They'll kill him, and I'll go hide in the jungles while I arrange transport off world."  
Tarmok's face shifted from a focused expression to an incredulous one. "Pardon me?" he asked, politely. He was sure he had misunderstood.

Wes smiled and turned toward him, speaking slowly, as though to an idiot child. Tarmok's blood began to boil

"I'm going to go to the Orion Syndicate. You're going to help me contact them. I'm going to tell them what Cullagh's been doing. They're going to eliminate him or I'm going to eliminate him, one of the other. They won't stand in my way. Then, I'll disappear into the jungle until I figure out a way to get off world. I brought some money with me, I'm not ignorant. Of course, Cullagh could kill me, or the Orion Syndicate could kill me, but that doesn't matter now." The boy's lips stretched again into that annoying death's head grin. "I left my combadge on the ship and I've broken Starfleet regulation and Federation law. I don't have anything left to lose."

The heel of Tarmok's right hand contacted solidly with Wesley's left ear. The blow came so fast that Wes didn't have time to react. His head snapped back on his neck and his feet slid out from under him, dumping him unceremoniously on the concrete floor. It was some moments before he could even raise his head.

When he could, Tarmok had walked back over to the chair in front of the console and was digging into the folds of his cloak. There was a brown grease stain soaked into the faded grey cloth. Wes's brain flooded with inconsequential details while he tried to find his voice.

"Wha..Why …Why did you _do_ that?" He sputtered.

Tarmok did not even look up. "Because, obviously, no one else ever has. Ah, here we go." He walked toward Wesley, holding a black scanner in front of him. Wes scooted back across the floor. "Stay away from me!" Annoyance flashed across Tarmok's face. "Be still."

His words pinned Wes to the floor. It was almost like being under Cullagh's command. Wes didn't know what was going on. He began to truly panic, sweat glistening on his brow. The watcher was ominously silent.

A hint of compassion surfaced through Tarmok's grim expression. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to scan you, to see if you've had a tracer injected into your blood."

The inspector passed the whirring machine over Wes' body as he continued, monotone. "So you're going to kill Cullagh, hmm? You've certainly grown you're your full measure of Federation grandiosity".

"You've never killed anything before. You'll find that task more difficult than expected. And you haven't lost _everything._ You still have your family, a mother, I believe. You have your life, and that's worth a lot more to you than you're willing to admit. You can regain the confidence of your crew. They're probably eager to believe that you beamed down under Cullagh's influence. You_ certainly_ haven't lost the privileged assumption that the universe is a kind and forgiving place if you think that you'll be able to take care of yourself after your carefully planned murder because you plan to hide in the _jungle_ and you've got_ money_."

The inspector's condescending tone made Wes' face sting with embarrassment, but before he could respond Tarmok frowned. "Why have you taken drugs?"

Wes let his head drop back down onto the hard, cold floor. "I didn't have a choice. The doctor gave me a sedative, so I had to take a stimulant to counter it. I didn't have any other way to neutralize it."

Tarmok looked down at Wes, his expression unreadable, then adjusted the scanner and passed it over Wes' body again. The machine beeped. "They hid a tracer in with the sedative. Apparently they didn't trust you as much as you thought. And you obviously haven't planned this out as well as you should have. You should have expected them to do something like this."

"Get up." The inspector said, cutting off Wes's defensive response. Tarmok offered Wes his hand, and pulled the boy effortlessly to his feet. Wes rubbed the left side of his face. His ear was still numb, and his jaw and neck ached.

"You didn't have to hit me, you know." Tarmok smiled. "Of course I did. You were hysterical. You were reacting, not thinking. You've forgotten what I told you six years ago: This is about more than just you and Cullagh. The fate of my people hang in the balance of our actions here, and I won't let you delude yourself into thinking otherwise."

Wes hung his head. "I _did_ think about this, Inspector. I thought that if the Syndicate were the ones to take Cullagh out, it could circumvent the need to draw official federation attention to the Orion Syndicate operations here. That would leave the status of your community stable, and the tentative Federation… _alliance_ with the Syndicate would remain undiscovered."

It always galled Wes when he thought about the Federation tolerance of the Syndicate here. It was a delicate balance, a "look the other way" policy that allowed small scale smuggling to go on in exchange for information and other illicit favors.

Tarmok simply regarded him, arms crossed in front of his chest, a vacant expression on his face. He didn't bring up the old argument that shone in his eyes, that the alliance between the Syndicate and the Federation was anyting but tentative. That the Federation was directly involved in Cullagh's activities, at least the main reason the Syndicate tolerated them. He'd had no luck convincing the eleven year old of that, and the sixteen year old was even more settled into his assumptions.

"Come with me." Tarmok said abruptly, shattering the heavy silence between them. "I'll take you to my place, and we'll neutralize the tracer. I don't have the tools to do that here."

Without a word the craggy inspector turned and began walking toward the front of the warehouse. Wes stood frozen, and a chilling numbness settled over him as the full weight of his situation sunk in. He was alone, and helpless, again on Tau Sigma IV. His only ally was hell bent on pursuing a plan of his own that only peripherally considered Wes' well being.

Tarmok stopped and turned back frowning. The fear and shock that held Wes in place was suddenly swept away by a familiar stoic presence. _You're not alone, you idiot. I'm here. And you're not helpless. Don't let the old bastard get to you, he's just trying to shake you up to see if you can handle the stress. He's probably already contacted the Syndicate himself_. A relieved smile broke through Wes' frozen expression, causing Tarmok to grit his teeth in trepidation. "Don't worry, I'm coming." Wes said, and walked quickly to catch up to the inspector. "Can we get something to eat on the way? I'll pay. I'm _starving_."

Wes' long legs overtook the inspector, and Wes missed the look of reserved concern that Tarmok gave him as the two men walked out of the warehouse together.

On the other side of the Wall, in an inconspicuous set of offices located three bocks away from the huge, multicolor domed building that housed the Inter Species Tribunal, Jenqua sat in front of a huge black oak desk in an office with curved lines and stark white walls that was tucked away in the rear of the building. A human male sat behind it, with brown hair and brown eyes and a forgettable face. His own personal blandness was contrasted only by the sense of understated danger that overcame the Ha'Cai every time he entered the man's presence.

The man cleared his throat, and spoke. "This is the third time this month you've been here for your medicine, Jenqua. It's possible that we need to have you come in for more experiments, so that we can refine a more effective mix of drugs for you."

The burly Ha'Cai didn't react to the implied threat. The "experiments" were necessary, but they were also one step away from torture and no effort was made to make them easier on him.

Jenqua sat still as a stone, fully aware of how his stoicism discomforted the man behind the desk even though Sloan would never show it. Finally, the Ha'Cai spoke. "No, sir. I think this will be enough. Maybe we can start the experiments again in a couple of months."

Sloan frowned. "Are you sure? We can't afford for you to be compromised."

The statement was just another ploy. Sloan was twisting the screws, trying to intimidate his subordinate with the threat of neccecary pain. He knew something out of the ordinary was happening, he just didn't know what, and he was fishing for information in his own heavy handed way.

For a man supposed to be immersed in the dark side of subtlety, Sloan would not have lasted a year in the Ha'Cai tribal alliance.

Jenqua stood, controlling his mammoth frame with a grace that supprised people who were not used to the fluid motions of the Ha'Cai. "I am positive, sir. There will be no compromise."

Wariness flickered behind Sloan's eyes, but he nodded and made a dismissing gesture before turning back to the stack of Padds on his desk. Jenqua walked out of the room, a slight smile on his face, already forgotten by Sloan by the time the doors closed behind him. It was so useful to be underestimated


End file.
